Headlights Fading
by EvilIsntBorn337
Summary: [Now with extras] When Emma Swan's car breaks down outside of a small town in Maine, she finds herself stuck at the local garage, but as the repairs take longer and longer to complete, she has to decide if, in the end, she wants to leave the town at all.
1. Chapter 1

_Perfect_. Emma thought, smoothing the creases out of the map spread over the hood of her car and tracing her finger for the hundredth time over the same blank area. It was no use, and she knew it. If the stretch of road she had so fortunately broken down on hadn't been on the map the first time she looked, it wasn't going to be no matter what she did. _Just fucking perfect._

Leave it to her to finally make the decision to leave Boston, to finally break free of her lonely routine of a life and maybe find somewhere to be happy, and get stuck in bumfuck nowhere not even a day later. She kicked at the front tire of the car as she made her way back around to peer in the trunk again. She had poked around back there earlier, looking at every bit of the engine she knew anything about, but there was only so much a person could do at the side of the road and, unfortunately, what little _could_ be done was not going to get this car back on the road.

"Should've sold you when I had the chance." She muttered to the car, slamming the trunk with a bit too much force. She trailed her hand along the roof, though, as she came back around. It wasn't the car's fault – it was old and she drove it hard some nights when speed was better than feeling. It was bound to happen sometime, but _now_?

She grabbed the map and locked the car, then struck off down the road the same way she had been headed before the car had stuttered to a glorious, messy stop. At the very least, she was determined not to go back the way she had come. She may be stuck, but at least she had _gotten_ somewhere.

Even though there was nobody else on the road, and hadn't been for hours, she stuck to the far edge of the shoulder. The circumstances could have been better, but she had to admit that the walk itself was actually nice. It was early September, and the world was hovering over the line between summer and fall, the leaves just starting to show hints of oranges and reds, and the air crisp but still warm. And frankly, after having been in Boston for three years with all the noise that came along with it, hearing nothing but the sound of the gravel shoulder crunching underneath her boots and the faint calls of birds from the woods that bordered the road…it was nice.

Caught in her thoughts as she was, she didn't see the signpost until she was within an inch of running straight into it.

"What in the…" Emma had never been one to have words surprised straight out of her mouth, but she figured this was a reasonable exception because she had studied that map and there had definitely _not_ been a town anywhere near here. She had been hoping to come across a farm or maybe, if she was very lucky, some kind of makeshift garage, but certainly nothing big enough to warrant a cheerfully painted wooden sign proclaiming "Welcome to Storybrooke".

"Figures." She muttered, but it was with a smile. Nothing screamed Quaint Small Town America quite like a town with a name like that. Hopefully Storybrooke would have a tow truck, or at least someone with a phone that actually got reception out here so she could call the garage she had passed a half-hour ago, get her car fixed, and get back to driving…wherever it was she wanted to go.

It only took five minutes to reach the edge of what looked like the main street. What Storybrooke lacked in size it clearly made up for by stringing everything along three blocks, stores packed tight against their neighbours on either side of the road. There were cars parked in front of a few of them, so she wagered there must be at least a gas station somewhere in town. And if she was right, it would be along this stretch of road.

As she walked along, she couldn't help the small smile that crept onto her face. For a town too small to be on the map, it had just about everything – pharmacy, diner, even a pawn shop – and it was _pristine_. There was something homey about the neat little shops and the spotless streets that there had never been in Boston.

The smile dropped off her face then, fast, because she had spent her whole life training herself not to feel at home _anywhere_ , because homes didn't last. Not for her. And she thought she had finally broken that habit because in Boston she hadn't felt anything. She had come close with…well, she had come close, but had never quite gotten there. That feeling of belonging had never hit her in the town where she had lived for three years, where she had been building a life, but after ten minutes in a tiny town she was suddenly throwing around _homey_ like it was nothing? No.

She started walking faster. The sooner she was out of here, the better.

—-

It was just her luck that the only business in this entire town that wasn't on the main strip was the garage. She would have turned around when she reached the end of the main street if a stocky, slightly surly man hadn't barrelled into her and demanded to know why she had stopped so suddenly. Even though he grumbled about sidewalk right-of-way, when she told him her problem, he had at least given her directions.

The garage was on the far end of the main street, half a dozen blocks away from the rest of the businesses. There wasn't a ton of anything on this edge of town, so she saw the dark shape of a building squatting a ways away from the road well before she got close enough to see the weathered sign out front: _Jones Bros. Automotive._

"About time." She muttered to herself, cutting across the dusty lot. The garage was bare and simple, two large doors set in a plain cement building with a farmhouse set farther back on the property. She strode up to the door that was rolled open and poked her head inside. "Hello?" Her voice rang out in the cavernous garage, but nobody called back. If this was the mechanic's day off…

She stepped inside and walked over to a mini van with the hood up, peering in. The engine looked half-rebuilt, and she figured if there was something in this place that was in some state of repair then someone here had to know what they were doing enough to help her get back on the road.

"It's generally customary to knock." A smooth voice came from close behind her. She jumped, moving to straighten and whirl to face whoever was there, but banged her head on the open hood instead.

"Son of a…" She resisted the urge to kick the van as she moved out from under the hood, but that urge quickly shifted to kicking the man in front of her as she saw how close he was to laughing. "Well, it's customary to actually be in your own garage in the middle of a business day." She said shortly. "Do you work here?"

He just flashed a crooked grin at her and tapped his chest, drawing her eyes down to the name stitched on his shirt. Killian.

"That's Killian _Jones_." He said, gesturing towards the road and the sign in the yard. "So yes. I work here. What can I do for you?"

"My car stopped just outside of town, by the sign." She waved her hand in the general direction of the road. "I looked, but there's nothing obviously wrong with it, and I've only been on the road a couple hours, and…" she trailed off and gave him a half-helpless, half-frantic look. "I kind of wanted to be well past Maine by now, so if you could fix it…"

He smiled that crooked smile again, and chuckled a little under his breath. "I'll bring the truck around." He said. "We'll see what we can do."

He disappeared through a door in the back of the shop, but he wasn't gone long before she heard the distinctive rumbling of a very large engine coming around the front of the building. The truck ended up being some demon hybrid between a tow truck and an eighteen-wheeler, the trailer long and solid. It could probably hold two of her cars on the bed and pull another behind it without breaking a sweat.

"I drive a small car, not a monster truck." She said as he hopped out, striding past her to grab a small tool box from the garage floor. "You'd need like…a pickup truck at most to tow it. Hell, you could probably push it back here if you had to."

"We're a small town, love." He said. "I can carry one truck on the amount of business I get, and I've got to be prepared in case I'm needed by a damsel in distress who does drive a monster truck."

"I'm not in distress."

"Certainly not." She was going to overlook that stupid smirk on his face, but only because she was screwed if he didn't help her. She just rolled her eyes, and his crooked smile grew as he passed her, tapping her elbow and nodding in the direction of the truck. "Hop in. Let's see if we can't get you back on the road."

—-

He took a roundabout way back to her car, skirting the main street and driving past endless stretches of cornfield until her car was suddenly a little yellow bulb on the horizon, and then right in front of them. As he slowed the truck, he let out a low whistle.

"Beautiful." He said quietly. She didn't think she was meant to have heard him. "'72?"

"What?"

"Your car." He pulled past it as he spoke, backing his truck up until it was inches from her front bumper. "1972 Super Beetle, right?"

"Yeah." She could feel a thread of approval in her voice, and the look he shot her in return was half mirth, half confusion.

"Don't sound so surprised, love. I work with cars every day. I do know a thing or two about them."

"Yeah, I guess you do." She could feel herself turning red, so she hopped out of the truck to avoid looking at him, lest this conversation trace back to the years that this car had been all she had, and to the fact that he was looking at it like he _respected_ it, in a way, and how that meant something to her well beyond what it should.

She waited for him to retrieve his tool kit and come around the back of the truck, then nodded at the car. "The engine's in the trunk."

"Thanks." He flashed her that same amused smile and walked past her to the back, opening the finicky trunk on the first try and leaning in to study the engine without preamble. He looked so comfortable with it, prodding at it with a curious finger, and she realized that he definitely knew exactly where the engine was before she said it, and on top of that more about it than she would ever have a dream of knowing.

She opened the door and sank into the driver's seat as he worked, thumbing absently through the old napkins and receipts she'd shoved in the glove box throughout the years. There were times she would look at this car and see it as a regular vehicle, and then there were times like these where it would seem like losing it was imminent, where she would find a crumpled placemat from the diner she had worked at after she had been released from prison, and remember the history she had with this car. God, she hoped he could fix it.

"Love?" He tapped on the roof of the car, and she jumped. He was leaning there casually, and looked as though he had been for a while. How many times had he said something before she had noticed? "We'll have to take it back to the shop so I can take a closer look, but I think I found your problem."

"It is a fixable problem?"

"Everything's fixable." He motioned for her to follow him back to the trunk, crowding under the hood with her. "What it looks like is that someone's replaced the original fuel injection system with a carburetor/distributor combo, and did it poorly, so your engine's working in a piecemeal sort of way, not as the unit it should be, and it just reached its limit."

"What do you mean reached its limit?"

"If the components of the engine aren't working together, you're going to end up with heat issues, seal issues, pump issues…and from the looks of it whoever put in this carb combo didn't have the…finesse they should, so I'll have to take it apart to see what's been affected."

"Are you sure?" She extracted herself from under the hook and stared at the engine from above. "I mean…I knew someone had replaced it but it's never been a problem before."

"As I said, I'll take a closer look in the shop, but I'm near positive." He rubbed a hand over the engine before stepping back as well, slamming the hood. He left a dark handprint on the tailgate, but she ignored it. "If that's the problem, we can try to fix what's there and stick with the setup you've already got, or we can convert back to injection and set the whole thing back up the way it would have been originally."

"That sounds like a lot of work."

"Let's see the full extent of what we've got to work with, alright?" He smiled at her, and there was a hint of sympathy to it. "Help me hook her up to the truck, and I'll take a look this afternoon."

—-

She was paging through an old magazine in the small office attached to the garage, a lukewarm cup of coffee in her hands, when he came to find her later that afternoon. She took one look at the grave expression on his face, and her heart stopped.

"It's bad news, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so, lass." He went to sit behind his desk, clicking at something on his computer screen as he spoke. "I was right about the problem, and honestly there's enough affected by the shitty conversion that you're going to encounter this issue again unless we do some major work."

"So what are you saying?" She stood to walk around the desk, watching him click through some sort of catalogue without really seeing. She felt slightly dizzy, and she knew it was just a car but it was _more_ than that, and now he was throwing around _major work_ …

"I'm saying that at this point, I think converting back to injection is your best bet if you don't want to have the same problem a year or two down the road." He tapped the screen and looked up at her, and he probably saw her pale a few shades as she saw the number at the end of a terrifyingly long list of parts. "That's what it'll cost to do it, and labour on top of that."

"Are you serious?" She felt slightly frantic and she knew she sounded it, but she didn't care. "I'm a bail bondsperson, and I'm not even _working_ right now and I mean I have some training but not nearly enough to fix this even if I _could_ afford the parts and I don't even have anywhere to…"

"Hey." He held up a hand and she bit off her sentence, realizing with no small degree of mortification that she had slightly forgotten he was there. "We'll figure something out, love, but we both know your options are limited right now so there's no use getting worked up about it."

"Says the man with steady job and the place to call home." She snarled, then sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. "Sorry. I'm just…"

"It's alright, lass. I understand." He pressed a few keys and stood, grabbing a few pages as they rolled out of the printer and bringing them back to the desk. "You said you had mechanical training?"

"I…yeah, a little. It's basic, but…"

"Ninety percent of my business is oil changes, tire changes, and standard tune ups. Think you can handle that?"

"Probably?"

"I'll make you a deal, love." He jotted a few figures on the printouts and nodded once, resolutely, to himself. "I'll bill the parts at cost and prorate the labour if you're willing to work off the rest."

"I…" She almost wanted to lie about her qualifications because this was more than she ever could have hoped for in this situation, but there was no way he wouldn't find out. "I'm not certified or anything. I just…took a few classes, once. A long time ago."

"It's fine, love." He grinned, and it sounded as though he was the one who wanted her to say yes, as though it was for his sake and not for hers. "It's basic work, and I'll check it before it goes out, but there's nothing fancy about the cars in this town. I'm sure you'll be fine, and if you're not we can work something else out, but I'm willing to try if you are."

"Yes." She let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding, that final yes all that she needed. "God, yes that would be great. Thank you."

"Wait until you're elbow deep in dirty oil before you get too excited." He sat back down at the desk and pulled a business card from the top drawer, handing it to her. _Granny's Inn and Diner_. "That's a B &B just at the other end of Main Street. Tell her I sent you and she'll give you a bit of a deal. She owes me a favour for some brake work."

"I…" Emma found herself without the words to thank him. It was one thing to get this type of kindness from someone she knew – and she had never even gotten much of that – but from a stranger?

"Go get yourself set up, love." He chuckled, waving at the door. "I'll find you some coveralls tonight and see you in the morning, yeah?"

"Uh…yeah. Thank you."

"Instead of a thank you, how about your name?" He shot her that crooked grin again. "I can't very well have you working for me if I don't even know what to call you."

"You seemed to be doing alright." She rolled her eyes at that – he had probably called her _love_ about a hundred times since she had first walked in – but returned his smile. "But it's Emma. Emma Swan."

"Well, Emma Swan." He winked at her and turned back to the screen, waving her out the door. "Welcome to Storybrooke."


	2. Chapter 2

Emma realized late that night that Killian hadn't told her when to be there the next day, nor had she thought to ask, so she showed up at 8 the next morning hoping that the garage followed some semblance of normal hours. Though of course it was just her luck that when she got there the doors were already thrown open, lights on, with Killian half underneath a car where he had clearly been for a while. She stood there a moment, watching his knees move faintly as he worked, until his muffled voice said, "Were you planning on standing there long?"

"Sorry I'm late," She said instead. "I wasn't sure when you opened."

"Since it's just me, we open whenever I wake up." He chucked as he rolled out from under the car, smiling up at her a moment, as casual as if she had caught him lounging on a blanket on the grass. "Lucky for the business, I'm an early riser." He pushed himself up and wiped his hands on the sides of his jeans. "Ready for some work?"

"I said I would be."

"That you did, love." He led her to the back of the garage and handed her a worn pair of coveralls. She saw his name stitched over the left-hand pocket, and he gave her an apologetic look. "I don't have a new pair, and these were the best I could find."

"They're great. Thank you." She slung the coveralls over her shoulder as he continued along the back wall, gesturing vaguely to groups of tools and rhyming off their names as though there was any sort of organization to them. One look at the sprawling mess spread over the long workbenches told her otherwise, but she kept her comments to herself. It's not like she was any better and, after all, he _had_ seen the state of her back seat.

They stopped their short tour in front of a boxy sedan sitting expectantly on the jack, and Killian gestured grandly at it. "Your project for the morning." He said, grinning at her.

"What's wrong with it?" She asked sarcastically, tapping the edge of the wheel well that was more rust than anything. "Everything?"

"Venture a guess."

"Dry rot?" It was more than a guess - she could see the fibers of the tire wall showing through where rubber should have been, and she could only imagine how long the rubber had been flaking off these tires before the car's owner had finally brought it in.

"Ten points to the lady." He pointed approvingly at her. "New tires, new rims. You'll have to mount the tires on the rims first, but apart from that it's fairly straightforward." He bent over gracefully to scoop a torque drill off the floor and handed it to her ceremoniously. She accepted it, but watched him as he walked back towards the car he had been working on. He was walking backwards, a shit-eating grin on his face. "You may want to put on those coveralls, love." He said finally, laying back down and disappearing under the car. She could hear that grin plain in his voice. "The lug nuts are seized on."

It ended up taking her nearly half the day to get the job done. She learned within the first five minutes that he hadn't been joking about the nuts being seized on. She had gone at the first wheel with the torque drill, expecting a half-hour of work, but all she got for her trouble was a faint grinding, a lot of rust dust, and the corners rounded off the lug head. She was also rewarded with a thick streak of rust-red down the side of her pants when she wiped her hands on them absently, and she cursed herself for ignoring Killian's advice to put on the coveralls before she started. She took a break before staring on the second nut, slipping them on over her clothes. Even if she _could_ hear his soft chuckle drift out from underneath the car across the garage as she swore under her breath, he had definitely been right about this.

She finally decided to forgo the power tool for a simple socket wrench, working the nuts loose one at a time, painstakingly slowly. It was maddeningly slow work, but it was straightforward and it was...cathartic, almost. Everything up to now had been a huge mess of frustration - her life in Boston, the person who had eventually pushed her to leave, her car breaking down, the parts being _so damn expensive_ \- but this was something she could _do_ , and even if she wasn't necessarily working on _her_ car to get _herself_ back on the road, every infinitesimal turn of each individual lug nut, even though there were twenty in total to get through, was another step forward, towards a future that could be happy and, for once, didn't seem _quite_ so distant.

The week wore on much the same, her arriving at the garage every morning and Killian already there, him giving her task after task that, though they were never hard, were always rewarding. Emma had learned everything she knew about mechanics ten long years earlier, but it all came back quickly as she worked, her hands remembering even when her mind didn't. He never said anything, but Emma saw Killian nod approvingly to himself once or twice as he inspected her work.

He never asked her where she learned her skills, how she could change fan belts and ignition coils without batting an eye and not have any sort of certification to her name. He just let her work in silence, took a glance over it at the end, but by and large she knew he trusted her, even in the short time she had been there.

They were both working in comfortable silence, her on the fan motor of a 1985 Saab 9000 that smelled faintly of cheese and had been making her hungry all morning, and him on a new exhaust pipe for a godawful panel van that was clearly causing him some trouble. Killian had been cursing heavily at the van, Emma trying to curb her smile and the laughter that kept trying to bubble up, but between one moment and the next he became very, eerily quiet.

She looked up from her work to find Killian toe to toe with a short, older man who made the air in the room feel markedly colder.

"My car is out front." He said without preamble. "I'm having trouble shifting past third and I'll need it fixed before the morning." He wasn't saying anything particularly out of the ordinary, but he sounded like a snake as he spoke, his words coiled and ready.

"I can't know what's wrong with it without taking a good look." Killian said. "And depending on the problem, I may need to order parts. I'll need at least a few days."

"That's unfortunate." The man's gaze sharpened as he leaned in a hairsbreadth closer to Killian, and he smiled a smile that was the farthest thing from pleasant. "We've discussed this in the past, Mr. Jones, but the proprietor from Johnson's garage - you know Johnson, one town over? He's looking to expand his business and he is _very_ interested in the property I have vacant just off the highway. And a mechanic's shop added to my portfolio? It would be a _very_ lucrative deal for me."

"I can't promise anything." Killian repeated. "I'll try my best, but-"

"It would truly be a shame if you couldn't have it ready in time." The man interrupted. He looked purposely casual, but there was a hard edge to his voice. "I remember a time when a man could get some real work done at this garage, but then again, your brother was always the businessman, wasn't he?"

If Emma hadn't been watching him, she would have missed the way the muscles jumped in Killian's jaw, and the awful shade of pale that swept over his face. The other man didn't miss it, either, and that self-satisfied, disgusting smile only grew wider. He pressed a key into Killian's hand and nodded his head slightly, a mockery of respect.

"I'll see you in the morning, Mr. Jones." He said, turning on his heel and walking out the door.

Killian stood there for a moment, his eyes following the faint shape of the man as he ambled down the driveway. He looked...hollow. Hollow and so, so small standing in the middle of the garage holding that key.

"What was that about?" She asked, abandoning the Saab and coming to stand just behind him. Yes, she barely knew him, but his teasing banter and calm silence in the garage as they both worked were becoming more and more familiar - enough so that she didn't want that taken away, especially by one short, demanding man.

"That's Mr. Gold." He ground out. "He owns most of the town, and aspires to own much more. He and I have never seen eye to eye."

"He does know what can do wrong with a transmission, right? How long they can take to fix?"

"I'm sure he does." Killian flipped the key over his knuckles once, then his gaze cut up to her face. There was a storm in his eyes when it did. "I'll start his repairs this afternoon. I just..." With a rough shake of his head, he turned sharply and strode to the back door, slamming the key hard down on the work bench on his way out. The sound of the impact echoed through the garage as he disappeared, and Emma stared after him. This was the same man who exchanged easy conversation with her across the garage day after day, who hadn't even raised his voice when he dropped a carburetor on his own foot three days earlier.

She looked out towards the road, in the direction Mr. Gold had taken towards town. Whatever the history was between these two, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Killian was gone nearly the rest of the afternoon. She had waited a half-hour for him to come back, but when he hadn't, she started surveying the old car in the front lot with more and more apprehension. If Gold truly was serious about threatening Killian's business, and came back tomorrow to find the repairs on his car not even _underway_...

Emma didn't need a history with the man to know how bad that would be.

Leaving the Saab for a moment, she retrieved the key from where Killian had unceremoniously deposited it, and gone out to stand in front of the car. It was an old Cadillac - of _course_ a man like that would drive a Cadillac - and where other similar vehicles may have looked dated and dusty, this one looked almost sharklike, its sharp lines and corners purposeful in their menace. With a sigh - who attributed menace to a stationary vehicle? - she unlocked the car and popped the hood.

The sun was low in the sky, shining through the doors to paint the whole garage in shades of oranges and reds, when he returned.

"It's nearly eight, love. I would've though you'd have left hours ago." She had heard his steps on the concrete floor as he came up behind her, but even as he spoke she stayed under the hood of the Saab.

"I'm almost done."

"Fan motor giving you trouble?" She heard the slide of tools against one another as he messed about with the pile of wrenches she had on the floor beside her, and then he too was underneath the hood with her. He used the butt of an adjustable wrench to poke at the wires that snaked up and through into the dash, and she just raised an eyebrow as his expression turned from understanding to deeply, deeply confused. "This all looks fine, love. Where's the trouble?"

"If you'd bothered to look..." She held a greasy rag in his face, and waited until he put two and two together. "The fan motor's fine - I was wiping down the engine."

"Apologies, love." He withdrew from under the hook, and she felt the car shift as he leaned against the bumped instead. She ran the rag a few more times over the curves and dips of the engine, then ducked out from under the hood to face him.

"Should I be concerned that you disappeared all afternoon?"

"If you're worried about your car, don't be." He looked slightly ragged as he ran a hand through his hair. "Your parts are on order, and even if Gold _does_ shut me down when I don't have that boat of a car ready in the morning, you'll be well on your way by the time this place goes under."

"It's-" She cut herself short as her inexplicable anger eclipsed anything else she could have said. He was sitting here talking about losing his livelihood, and he didn't look so much as _irritated_. " _How_ are you not pissed about this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I _mean_ that he came in here with completely unreasonable demands, threatened your business, and you just...you _leave_ and then you come back and you're not even angry?"

"Some things just aren't worth fighting about, love."

"This isn't? Your whole _life_ isn't?" She threw her hands up in the air, and she didn't know why she was so worked up about something that would stop having any bearing on her life the moment she crossed the town line, but she felt consumed by this irritation that he wasn't even _doing_ anything about it. "Maybe you _should_ get that supposed business genius of a brother in here, because _someone_ should be angry about this, and it sure as hell shouldn't be me!"

She stopped, letting her arms fall to her side in exasperation, and turned back towards him. She hadn't noticed in the midst of her tirade, but he had gone unnaturally still, and his gaze was very carefully neutral. Inside it, though, there was a vortex of something that she felt like she could get lost in.

Her fingers felt numb and she could feel her heart beat in her ears, realizing instantly and horribly why a man who would threaten another man's business might bring up the topic of that other man's brother.

It wasn't because the brother in question was still around.

"Killian, I..."

"It's my fault for not mentioning it earlier." He said dismissively, but she knew why he hadn't told her - she had seen it in that deep pit of his eyes. "My brother...he _was_ the brains of the company after our father left and our mother passed - that much is true. When he died..." He stopped for a moment, his mouth open as though he had words ready that didn't want to come out. "When he...I didn't handle it well. I did a great many things after, but running this business was not one of them. And now with only me doing repairs, turnaround times aren't what they used to be, and Gold knows that. So trust me, Swan. If I had the option of having my brother here, I would very happily take it." He pushed himself off the bumper with a sigh. It looked like he was staring into a place she would never be able to see, but she saw his gaze catch on the corner of the sign outdoors, lingering on _Jones Bros._ She should have figured out sooner, why there was _Brothers_ on the sign but only one brother in the garage. "You can go now, Swan. I'll close up."

"Killian, I'm sorry."

"It's been years, Swan." He waited for her to shed her coveralls, following her to the large garage doors, ready to close them behind her. A part of her didn't want to leave him alone when he looked so defeated, but she didn't know him, and it was clear from the way he was subtly but surely ushering her out that he didn't want her to stick around to _get_ to know him, either.

She lingered in the yawning frame of the door a moment, waiting until he came up beside her, his eyebrow arched in a silent question. He looked remarkably lonely, one man with the whole sunset-painted garage spread out behind him. She knew lonely, and she knew a thousand words she would have wanted to hear in the same situation. Instead, she took his hand gently, her fingers soft against the back of his hand as she dropped the key for the Cadillac in his palm.

"The TV cable was frayed almost clean through." She said. "You had another one in the back. It's reinstalled, connected to the throttle arm, and adjusted. Saab's done too. And that creepy van. I took them all out on the road, and they're ready to go." She glanced up at his slightly startled expression, and shrugged a shoulder. "Someone had to."

"Swan, you didn't..."

"Let's just say I wanted to." She didn't want to get into the way chest tightened as she watched him storm off after his conversation with Gold - at how the look on his face was only too familiar, and how she knew that when you had to take a several-hour long break to pull yourself together you deserved for something to go your way. She just shrugged again, and started off down the driveway. "See you in the morning, Killian."

"Night, Swan." He said vaguely, his head still spinning with the amount of work she had fit into the afternoon just so he wouldn't have to.

He started rolling down the doors, but watched her make her way across the dusty grass and along the road back into town. Silhouetted like that against the setting sun, her words still echoing in his mind, in that moment he thought that she was perhaps the most brilliant thing he had ever seen.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thank you so much to all who have read, reviewed, followed, favourited, or looked at this in any way at all. Small note for this chapter: in my world, speed is measured in km/h, not mph, so when you get to that part of the chapter, be advised that 140 kph is somewhere around 85 mph. My fics may have their abundant weaknesses, but we do follow the laws of physics here. As always, comments and criticism are always welcome!**

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Gold was already at the garage by the time Emma got there the next morning, and the way he was standing made her think he was looking for a fight. It wasn't that he was combative as much as he was...still. He looked wound up, like he had a thread of anger and anticipation holding him up, and was waiting for an opportunity to let it strike out. But his car was finished, sitting in the front lot and glossy in the early morning sunlight, and Killian was actually _smiling_ as he handed over the key. Well, smiling in a very smug, very satisfied, very I-know-what-you-were-hoping-would-happen-and-didn't-I-just-foil-your-plans kind of way, but smiling nonetheless.

"Don't hesitate to bring it back in if you have any other problems." Emma heard him saying as she walked up. "I'm always happy to have a look."

"I'm sure there will be." Gold muttered. He looked unreasonably angry for a man who had just gotten the fastest service in the history of services. His hold on the dapper-old-gentleman facade he seemed to wear looked tenuous as he jerked a curt nod at Emma on his way back to his car. She paused in the doorway as he started up the engine, listening to the smooth purr of it for a moment and the barely-there sound of the gears shifting as he put it into gear and rolled down towards the road.

"Like it's brand new." Killian commented, coming to stand behind her with his hand braced on the doorframe.

"Must've had a good mechanic." Emma said drily, watching the car kick up dust on the road for another moment before pushing off and wandering into the garage. "What time did he come by?"

"Quarter to eight." Killian chuckled. "And he was in a rage before I even opened the door - you should've seen his face when I told him his repairs were done, when he realized he wasn't going to get the chance to yell at me."

"You did check my work, right? He's not going to come back in here with some stupid little problem I missed?"

"I took a look at it." He followed a few steps behind her back to the workbench, shuffling a few tools around as she slipped her coveralls over her clothes, and now he flipped a wrench in the air and gave her a winning smile before backing towards a car already mounted on the jack. "It was perfect."

She just waved a dismissive hand at him, turning towards her first project of the day - a 90′s Ford with an exceptionally flat tire - to hide her sudden smile.

She mounted the tire quickly and dove into a morning of back-to-back oil changes, the garage cool and quiet except for the faint sounds of Killian working on the other car and the tinny sound of oil draining into the pan.

Sometime between the first two oil changes, Killian went to the back to grab a tool and flicked on the radio in the office, the soft strains of distinctive, twangy guitar following him back into the garage. Emma's head snapped to his, her eyebrow already arched in protest.

"You're not serious." She said flatly. He just shook his head, bewildered.

"What?"

"Come on - _country? Really?_ Of all the music in the world..."

"Not a fan?" A sly, slightly wicked smile replaced the confusion on his face. "And what do _you_ listen to that's so superior?"

"I don't know...Alt Rock? Anything?"

"Oh please. Alt Rock is not a preference - Alt Rock is a copout." He disappeared around the back of the car again, his stupid grin still laced through his words. She narrowed her eyes and threw a balled up shop towel in his direction, though it barely made it halfway.

"You're a jerk, you know that?" She called over. He only laughed.

"If I am, Swan, at least I'm a jerk with _taste_."

The next afternoon, Killian drove into town to answer a service call, and returned an hour later with an '89 Buick and a smile splitting his face.

"What are you so goddamn happy about?" Emma asked him, wandering into the front lot when she heard the rumble of the tow truck. She had been working on a car that was stuck behind the shop, the engine fried and the car immovable without the truck or another person around to move it inside. The back lot was dusty, unreasonably hot in the sun, and the car itself was a pain in the ass, so she was already cross even before he came in like the cat who ate the canary. "Did someone give you that car as a gift, or did you just lose your mind between town and here?"

"Careful with that tone, lass." He said, downright jubilant as he sauntered over to the passenger side and opened the door, fussing with something inside. "Otherwise you don't get your gift."

"I'll pass on the gift if you'll shut up and come tow that stupid Chevy inside."

"Why don't you wait to see what it is first?" He reappeared, his grin flashing brilliantly in the sun, hefting a large cardboard box in his arms. "Picked this up at the post office on my way back."

"I don't care about your mail, Killian. What I _care_ about is -" She trailed off as she thought about the answer to that question - _I care about getting my car back_.

All at once, his smile made perfect sense.

"Is that..."

"Yours." He nodded, that grin getting impossibly wider as he passed her to deposit the box at the back of the shop, Emma nearly running in her haste to follow him. "I've got one more part coming from another supplier, but it'll be here in a few days, and in the meantime this is what I need to start."

"I take back everything bad I ever said about your mail." She knew her voice sounded slightly breathy as she looked down at the box, resting her fingertips lightly on it like it was the key to everything she had ever wanted. He just chuckled under his breath and grabbed a knife off the bench, slicing through the tape and opening the box to shuffle through the contents.

"I can't dive completely into your repairs - I do have to honour the other bookings, and you still have to work here." He said. "But I'll work on it as much as I can, and we'll get you back out there."

"I know the deal." She said, her gaze dancing over the sleek metal of the parts. A smile played on her lips, and a thousand repairs on hellish cars in the baking heat of the back lot would all be worth it once she had the Bug back. She looked up, and he was watching her with a different, slightly wistful smile on his face. His hand drifted up to rub behind his ear as her eyes met his, and she got the idea that she wasn't supposed to have seen him.

"I'll unload the Buick and bring the truck around back." He said. "We'll hook up the Chevy and get it in here."

"Sounds like a plan." Killian broke away first, and Emma watched him for a moment, swinging his keys casually as he walked back to the truck. He was nearly at the garage doors when she called, "Killian?" He turned only slightly, enough that it was only with one eye that he saw her grateful smile. "Thanks."

The twist of a smile he returned wasn't quite the triumphant thing it had been when he pulled up. "Anytime, Swan."

The minute Killian pulled those parts out of the truck, Emma should have realized that her luck - her happiness - wouldn't last long. She left the shop that evening just in time to grab the last piece of lasagna at the diner on the ground floor of Granny's, then went upstairs to spend the rest of the night with a book and a glass of lukewarm wine. It was only ten by the time she felt her eyes drifting shut, but between the hellbeast that was the Chevy and her long day with Gold's repairs two days prior, she wasn't surprised that her body was finally catching up to her.

She was somewhere just north of sleep when her phone rang.

"Emma Swan." She said groggily, caller ID a foreign concept to her mind that was just screaming _sleep_.

"You took the towels." He said without preamble. "All of them."

She sat straight up in bed, instantly, painfully awake. She should have known it would be him - who else had ever called her, and who else would call her _now_ unless it was someone with an axe to grind?

"We only had four towels." He plowed on. "You could have at least had the decency to leave me one." She could hear in his voice that this was just the beginning of where this conversation was going to go. He had always had a talent for getting himself worked up, so fired up about something so small that he would let build and build until it was an hour long conversation where nobody else got to say a word.

"What do you want, Walsh?" She asked. She drew her knees up to her chest and rested her cheek on them, wishing that she had never picked up.

"I want to take a goddamn shower without having to stand in the middle of the goddamn bathroom air drying for an hour."

"You're a grown man; you can buy your own towels." But she knew him, and knew this wasn't where it was going to end. "What's this really about?"

"What's this - Emma, you _left_. I come home from work and you're fucking _gone_ without a word to me, with all the goddamn towels, absolutely no warning..."

"Hold on." She held up a finger even though he wasn't there to see it. "I would have thought that _You don't fit in my life_ would have been warning enough, from your end. Especially considering _I'm_ the one who didn't fit in _your_ life, according to you."

"You're putting words in my mouth. I said that your _behaviour_ -"

"You asked me to blow off my job to go to a party with you, Walsh. That's not _my_ behaviour."

"That's not fair." His voice got a few notches louder, and she got out of bed as if to get away from this entire conversation, taking a few steps before she realized there was nowhere to go. "I told you when we got together that my job involved a lot of corporate events."

"And I said I'd come when I could, but-"

"You _know_ how important family is to my company, to the _CEO_ , who was _there_ by the way _..."_

"You cannot have _ever_ expected that I would abandon a meet with a perp I'd been setting up for _weeks_ to drink champagne with the upper management of your company just because a husband and wife and 2.2 kids are part of your corporate values!"

"Emma, you're a bail bondsman! It's not like you can't set something else up! But this was a one time event with all the senior guys, and now that you've left entirely what the hell am I going to do for family?"

"Find one that means something beyond how it looks to your boss." She said. Her blood felt like ice in her veins, and she felt numb as she spoke. Once upon a time, she had believed in a future with this man. Again, like always, it had been foolish even to want it.

"It's not even..." He made an impatient, angry sound. "This whole thing...you're just not thinking, Emma. That's what doesn't fit. This, this being selfish, was never _you."_

"That's where you're wrong, Walsh." She felt the energy drain from her body, suddenly not angry despite what he was saying, suddenly not anything. "You never knew me at all."

She hung up on whatever words she knew were building to an explosion on the other end of the line. The room was too quiet now that the weight of his expectations was gone, but even though she was tired in a way that ached all the way down to her bones, she felt restless. Her feelings were mounting to an apex she didn't want to face, because she had let herself want a future, dream of a family, imagine that it was something that could _happen_ for her, and even though she had to live with the knowledge that she had been wrong, even though that was a fact that spun through her mind every day, hearing his voice had made it too real.

She needed to be not-here. She needed to be somewhere that wasn't this room that was simultaneously stifling and too open; she needed to be somewhere that would anchor her, where she wouldn't feel like a transient in this world where everyone had somebody but her. Most of all, she needed somewhere where it felt like she belonged.

She didn't change out of her pajamas as she stole down the dark stairwell and out into the night, ghosting along the dark streets, taking breaths that didn't feel real. Nobody else was out, but if they had been she felt like they wouldn't even see her. She was a spirit and the earth and the air, but she wasn't a person because people needed people, and she must not because nobody ever stayed.

It took minutes or hours to get to the garage, but once she was there it felt like it took the space of an insubstantial, not-enough breath to get to her car in the rear lot. It was locked - they keys hanging on the service wall inside the building - but that hadn't stopped her the first time so it definitely wasn't going to now. A spare bit of wire slid down past the window glass, a quick tug, and she was sliding into the driver's seat and taking a deep breath that felt like the first in far too long. And then the breaths were coming too fast and _Goddamit, Emma, you can't cry about this_ but everything crashed over her now that she was sitting here because the seat felt as familiar as a pair of arms wrapping solidly around her, and the scent of the interior was musty and familiar and she didn't think of the smell of a family kitchen or cinnamon rolls on sundays when she thought of home, she thought of this. And then despite her warning to herself, the tears started to fall because how had she gotten to the point that she had to attach these feelings of belonging to a car that wasn't even hers to feel like the word _home_ applied to her at all?

"How are you all that I have?" She whispered, her voice hitching and breaking. She ran her hand over the curve of the steering wheel, the smooth knob of the gear shift, and she imagined punching the gas pedal hard and tearing out of the lot, down onto the road and far into distance, fast enough to leave her thoughts here in the dust of the parking lot, fast enough to outrun anything.

" _How are you all that I have_?" She yelled, her voice loud and tight in the small space. " _How are you all that I have and you don't even fucking work_!?"

The anger took the last bit of anything out of her, and she dropped her head to the top of the steering wheel, the smooth vinyl cool against her forehead as she watched tears drip onto the dusty steering column.

"Please be okay." She whispered into the dead air. Her voice was muffled and close in the small space she had created, and it sounded like a bare shell. She knew it was a mechanical problem and nothing more that was keeping the car here, but tonight it felt like something more. "Please don't go away too."

She woke to the sound of metal-on-metal, bolting straight up in her seat. She had wormed her way into the back seat before falling asleep the night before, and for a moment all she could focus on was the headrest in front of her, and the bare white wall outside the windshield.

Then she locked eyes with Killian through the open back door of the shop, his eyes wide and apologetic, darting to workbench and the chaotic spread of tools. From his guilty look, he knew he had woken her, which means he had known she was there in the first place.

She slipped out of the car, leaning against the roof for a moment as she got her bearings. It was still dark out and her head was throbbing from the tears and the near-sleepless night. Killian's eyes were trained on her, and he moved as though to take a step towards her. She froze, waiting for the inevitable comments: _That's no place to spend a night; What are you doing here; Don't you have anywhere to go?_ She'd heard every line from every well-meaning person a hundred times before, and she mentally kicked herself for being so careless, for not sneaking out before he woke up, and most of all for coming here in the first place.

The silence stretched between them, but still he said nothing, just holding her there with that look that had layers and layers behind it. She didn't know how he had come in that morning, early as ever, seen her stretched out in the back seat, and known that the reason her body fit so perfectly against the dips and rises of the seat was because this was the closest thing she had to home – the closest thing she had to someone being on her side, to having somewhere to go when the night stretched out long and lonely. And she didn't know that he had been cautiously working seized bolts off an ancient engine for two hours with a pair of pliers instead of wrenching them off with a torque drill because he had spent more nights than he was proud of curled into a back seat of his own, and he knew, somehow, that she needed this.

She just stared back at him, her eyes wide and slightly wild, until he cleared his throat, rubbed a spot behind his ear, and said in a soft voice, "There's coffee in the office."

"Uh...thanks." She slid through the back door and past him, avoiding his careful gaze, and straight to the office where she poured herself a cup and sank down in his desk chair. A refrain of _stupid, stupid, stupid_ ran through her head as she drank the first cup without really tasting it, the liquid burning her tongue but waking her up enough to steel herself against whatever it was he was going to say when she went back out there, pour herself a second cup, and venture back out into the garage.

He was fiddling with something on a silver Rabbit, and didn't so much as look at her as she slunk out with her coffee and went to pull on her coveralls. Only when she had them zipped up the front did he finally say, "There's an '87 Toyota Tercel out back that needs a new fan belt, if you're looking for something."

That was all he said, even as she moved the Toyota into the garage and got to work - not even his usual banter. The work itself was slow going, not because it was hard but because she couldn't concentrate. All she could hear was Walsh's voice on the phone last night, and the way he had sounded weeks ago when he told her that the choices she made didn't work with his life, and she needed to change to be a part of it - saying in so many words that she didn't belong.

"Emma." Killian's voice was soft but insistent, cutting through the whorl of her she came back into herself, she realized she had been staring at the new fan belt in her hands for several long minutes.

"I've got to take the Rabbit for a test drive." He said. "You mind coming along?"

"Sure. Why?"

"I want to pay attention to the tachometer and the way the engine sounds, and it's easier if someone else is driving." He tossed her the keys. "Mind backing it into the front lot? I've got to lock the house."

He was gone maybe five minutes, then back and tossing a small bag in the back and sinking into the passenger seat.

"Mobile toolkit." He explained, nodding to the bag. "Sometimes a bolt needs tightening on the road."

"You going to close the garage doors?" She asked as a reply.

"Nah. Nobody's up at this hour, and anyone who stole a car from me would end up driving it around town where everyone knows its real owner anyways." He tapped the dashboard and nodded at her. "Take a left on the road."

"What'd you do to this car, anyways?" She asked, rolling down the driveway slowly.

"Rebuilt the clutch. Thus the thorough test drive."

"When did you do that?" She cut a glance sideways at him - she had been in the garage every day, and she had never seen him so much as _look_ at this car, much less dismantle and rebuild the entire clutch.

"Last night." He gestured towards the road, still approaching very slowly as they crept forwards. "Come on, Swan. I know you can drive stick, and we're not going to get a good test at this speed."

She let their conversation lapse into silence as she accelerated, turning left as he directed onto the long stretch of road leading away from town. They drove along in easy silence for a few minutes, Emma shifting smoothly up and down through the gears as they went along and Killian staring intently at the dash as the dials catalogued how fast the engine was turning. They couldn't have been more than a mile from the shop when he nodded resolutely and said, "Looks good."

She was about to ask whether he wanted her to turn back when she saw a glint of a smile appear on his face.

"How fast do you think this car can go, Swan?"

It took her a fraction of a second, enough for shock to register and be eclipsed by a wicked, restless excitement, then she was right there with him. "Five speeds, 2.5 litre engine...I'm going to guess 140 easy?"

"Why don't you test that theory?" He said, and the empty space in her chest that had only hours before wished to run from everything she had ever felt sang with the possibility of speed.

She punched the gas hard, and shifted up two gears at once. He didn't need to ask her twice.

They flew along the road and didn't say a word to one another as they did, but their combined excitement and sheer reckless glee was enough to bring them closer together than words ever could have in those minutes as the needle on the speedometer climbed higher and higher.

"Stop sign!" He said too soon, pointing at the faint red shape up ahead. Emma thought about not stopping - about blowing right through this stop sign and every other one, about driving this car until it gave out or until they ran out of gas.

She settled for shifting into neutral and letting the car coast at breakneck speed until it was nearly too late, and braking so hard the seatbelt cut into her shoulder.

They idled at the stop sign a moment, and she was waiting for the admonishment: for him to tell her she was being reckless, that this wasn't her car, that this was his business and not to blow the brakes on a test drive.

Instead, two fingers settled lightly on her kneecap, and he said, "Let the clutch out enough for the engine to catch, but don't move."

She did, and watched the car respond. The engine growled, the car shuddering beneath her as she held it there, and she felt as though all that anticipation and raw power was feeding straight into her own body - that his two fingers solid and steady on her knee were all that were holding them there.

She saw his eyes dart up to the dash, but before he had a chance to say a word of instruction, she put the car in gear - second gear, not first, because they were _well_ past that - and that same wicked smile spread over his face. The pressure of his hand left her knee, and they screamed off the line. A wild grin touched her lips, and she chanced a look over at him. He looked...perfect. With the pre-dawn light just starting to paint the sky shades of purple, with that smile on his face, with his expression wide open and ecstatic...

His hand dropped to hers on the gearshift, and she nearly jumped out of her own skin. She had held his gaze for a fraction of a fraction of a second, but with her foot heavy on the gas, the engine was whining in the low gear. His hand guided hers through third and fourth to the fifth and highest gear before he let released it. "You've got more than two gears, Swan." He laughed shortly, then pointed at an intersection approaching far too fast. "Turn right!"

She slammed the brakes and they took the turn so fast she could feel the rear wheels slide an inch or two at the apex of the curve, heard the clutch drop into place heavily as she shifted into a messy third, but then they were through and facing another straight shot of blissfully empty road and the car could have used a sixth gear to carry the amount of speed she was asking of it, but the engine was cool in the pre-morning air and the car was willing and Killian wasn't saying no to any of this and finally, _finally_ she felt something like happy.

"Okay, okay." He said, breathless and joyful like he had been laughing. "Slow down - we're going to shoot straight off the edge of the coast and into the ocean if we don't." She was reluctant, but she eased on the brakes as the blue line of the ocean got nearer and nearer, until they rolled to a stop mere feet from the waterline, nothing but a weathered log fence between them and the sea. She pulled on the parking brake and turned off the car, this place clearly some sort of destination. The engine ticked faintly as it wound down, and Killian ducked out of the car, retrieving his bag from the back seat and moving around to climb on to the hood.

"Come on, Swan." His voice was muffled through the glass, but the sound of his hand patting the hook echoed through the inside of the car. He held up his bag with one hand. "I've got breakfast."

He waited until she was settled on the hood beside him before pulling out, with no small degree of ceremony, two muffins wrapped in a paper towel, and a thermos.

"You bring snacks on all your test drives?" She asked, arching an eyebrow at the setup.

"Only on the ones conducted before dawn." He handed her a muffin, balancing the other in his lap while he unscrewed the thermos. "I forgot mugs, but there's coffee."

"I trust you've had your shots." She held out a hand for the thermos and took a long swig. With the adrenaline starting to fade, she knew she'd be feeling her long night soon enough. Handing the thermos back to him, she regarded the muffin. "Is this...a bran muffin? Seriously? What are you, eighty?"

"More like three hundred." He said casually, sipping some of the coffee. They sat comfortably for a few moments, then he twisted so he was facing her. "Emma..."

"Tell me why Gold is so hell bent on chasing you out of town." She said quickly, the words springing to mind when she realized what he was about to say: _That's no place to spend a night; What are you doing here; Don't you have anywhere to go?_

Killian's gaze fell hard on her face, and she held it in steely silence. He searched her eyes for a moment, then broke her gaze and sighed heavily. _"_ It's...you know about my brother. About how he's..." He started worrying the edges of his muffin, and Emma took a bite of her own while he put the words together. For bran, it was pretty good. "He was in a car accident. Gold...he was...well, nobody knows if he hit Liam directly or just ran him off the road." He ran a hand through his hair. "There was a court hearing afterwards because I was angry and I knew - _know_ \- he was involved, even though he said his car was out of control because of a failed repair _weeks_ before. But it got thrown out because there was no concrete proof." Emma looked over at him, and he looked tired and slightly ragged, but she could still see something burning in his eyes - some knowledge that he was right about this even if nobody else knew. "You've met him - seen the lie of a person he pretends to be. Polite, tame, firm in business but _fair_...and he hates that I brought him into that case and made people doubt, even for a moment, that he is who he wants them to believe he is. Now they look at him and wonder if he's the type of man who would play such a part in another man's..." He stopped for a moment and took a heavy breath, and she was instantly sorry she had brought this up. "Liam was well liked, friendly, kind, a good businessman, brother...and I had sympathy on my side even if I did bugger up the business afterwards. So now Gold's in it for the revenge, and I'm..." He sighed a final sigh and took another swig of the coffee. "I'm trying."

"Killian..."

"Your turn, Swan." He brushed the demolished crumbs off his jeans and gestured to her with the remains of his muffin. "I don't mean to pry, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let my best mechanic suffer in silence if there's a listening ear about."

"I..." She swallowed her explanation, because for a moment she actually _wanted_ to tell him everything from the very first moment when she had been deemed not good enough and left on the side of a highway to the very last moment with Walsh and his life having no room for Emma Swan unless she unbecame herself. But that was not a story anybody wanted to hear. "Let's just say I'm trying too."

"Here's to trying, then." He raised his muffin, and she tapped hers against his. The sun was just edging up over the horizon, and even though they were both slightly muted from the direction their conversation had taken, the gesture itself was a hopeful way to ring in the new day.

"Here's to trying."


	4. Chapter 4

It could have been awkward after that morning, and it probably _should_ have been, but somehow it just…wasn't. After they got back to the garage (he drove this time, and the speedometer was flirting with 140 the entire time, and it should have been terrifying, but it wasn't) he left her to her own devices, heading off to his side of the garage and leaving her to finish the fan belt, and that morning – and the night before – never came up again.

Part of her kept expecting his voice to ring out in the space, finishing the question he had started to ask her, sitting on the hood of that car. But another part – a larger part – kept hearing his voice echo through her head, the sound of it as he talked about his brother, the set of his mouth as he let her steer the topic far away from herself, and the way she knew implicitly that he had heard more than his fair share of prying questions from well meaning people about things he wasn't ready to talk about. So he let her stay silent, let her fiddle with the fan belt and then some brake pads and then two ignition coils, and when he did talk it was about the cars or the weather or a song on the godawful country station he had playing again. And while she kept on expecting his question to come, she was beyond grateful that it didn't. She had been with Walsh for over a year, but she had never had this easy silence with him – never had this plain respect for the things that she needed. She had known Killian for mere weeks, and in that time he had figured out what Walsh hadn't come close to in over a year.

Today, they were working together. She had come in to the sight of Killian cursing at an exhaust pipe that was bent _way_ out of shape that he told her the owner was too cheap to fix properly, so he ended up banging away at it on the back workbench until it remotely resembled the shape of a normal exhaust, and then somehow _she_ ended up wrestling the thing into place while he attached it back to the undercarriage.

"I'm about ten seconds away from murdering this car _and_ you with my bare hands, so can you _please_ hurry up?" She shifted her weight a bit as he took his sweet time readjusting the angle of the wrench, scowling darkly at him. Her arms had started going numb five minutes ago, the jack up just high enough that she had to hold the pipe at a _very_ awkward angle, and she was ready for this to be over if only because he had promised to start taking a look at her car after they were finished.

"If I do it right, Swan, I only have to do it once." He flashed that stupid crooked grin at her and she resisted the urge to kick him in the shin.

"You can do it right and still do it _fast_."

"Maybe I just enjoy your company." He winked at her and pulled another bolt from his pocket, whistling a little as he screwed it in. She just stared at him, eyes narrowed but a smile on her face.

Three bolts later and her arms felt like noodles, but he finally wiped his hands on his coveralls and stuck the wrench in a pocket.

"All done, Swan." He whacked the pipe once, heartily, and then poked her in the shoulder. "I should sell the jack and just get you to hold up the cars – you did a bang up job with this."

"If you did, I'd drop one on your head." She ducked our from under the car and let her arms fall, and couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped. "And it might not be an accident."

"Harsh." He lowered the jack and reached into another pocket, palming the keys. "But careful there, Swan – a couple more comments and maybe I'll just _forget_ to bring your car in here."

"I'll be good." She raised her hands in surrender, backing towards the side of the garage where she had a car ready and waiting. It always amazed her that a town so small could keep both her and Killian so busy, but since the first day she started there had always been a line of cars in the lot ready for their attention.

She started jacking up the car to bleed the brake lines, but Killian's crisp whistle cut over the sound.

"Want to help me bring your car in before you get into that?" He said, waiting until she stopped the jack and the garage was silent. "It'll take two to push it."

"Yeah, abso–" The phone shrilled from the office, the sound bouncing around the space, as loud as if it were next to her and not a whole garage away.

"Hold that thought." Killian held up a finger, flashing another grin at her before he jogged towards the office. She finished hoisting the car while he was gone, but her mind wasn't on it – finally, _finally_ , she was going to get her car back. She knew it would take time, and she still had a lot to pay off even with the labour she'd already done, but every step closer to her car being fixed was one step closer to her finally getting back on the road and to…wherever it was she was going to go.

He was gone for several long minutes, and when he came back into the garage, there was no hint of that easy grin on his face.

"Change of plans, Swan. We've got to go pick up a car."

"Both of us?"

"Aye. It'll take two to get it on." There was something stony about his expression, and she didn't push it any further, just followed him out to the truck and rolled the garage doors closed behind her. By the time she climbed into the passenger seat, he had settled into a tense silence, and as they drove the short distance to the inland border of the town, he just stared out the windshield with a grim expression on his face. When they stopped, she could see why.

The sheriff had beat them to it, but an accident was no less an accident just because someone else was there. The car was blocked from view by the police cruiser, but as Killian backed the truck up, she caught a glimpse of the wreck in her mirror, and even in that small sliver of a moment she knew it was bad.

When they hopped out, Killian looked markedly whiter than he had only minutes before.

"Thanks for coming so quickly." A tall man with light brown hair walked up to them, and she guessed from the badge at his hip that he was the sheriff. "I didn't want to keep it on the road and have it distracting people driving past – the last thing we need is another accident."

"Aye." Killian nodded shortly. "Emma, this is Sheriff Nolan; Dave, this is Emma Swan. She's working with me for a while."

"Nice to see a new face around here." The sheriff stuck out his hand, shaking hers warmly. "Keeping Killian on his toes?"

"Trying to." She smiled. Sheriff Nolan held a hand out towards the car and she led the way towards it. As she did, she heard Killian talking to the sheriff in a low voice behind her.

"The driver?" He asked.

"I don't know." She couldn't see the sheriff shake his head, but from his tone, she didn't have to. "But I'll find out."

"Thanks, mate." There was the muffled sound of a hand clapping a shoulder, and then Killian was jogging up beside her and wiping his hands on his jeans as he approached even though they were perfectly clean. It struck her suddenly that he was nervous. "I'll get Dave to move his cruiser and pull the truck around – shouldn't take too long between the two of us."

"Don't they need to look for evidence or something?"

"Dave usually takes photos before I get here, and he'd tell me if he needed more time. I think he just wants it off the road." They stopped a few feet from the car, and he stood there for a long moment just looking at the car, bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet with his hand rubbing behind his ear, before nodding once and backing away in the direction they had come. "Take a look, see if there's anything that'll give us any problems. I'll be right back."

He practically ran back to the truck, and she just stared after him for a moment. This was the same man who had followed a rolling tire halfway to the road at a slow amble, who was always leaning up against something, whose every move was almost deliberately casual, whose _smiles_ unfurled slowly. And now he was running places and fidgeting and glancing to and away from the wrecked car in short snatches that never settled. He was almost the opposite of the man she had come to know, and she wondered idly if someone had flipped a switch on him while she wasn't looking.

Turning her attention towards the wreck, she supposed she at least couldn't blame him for not letting his gaze linger too long on the car. She hadn't had an easy life, had seen more than her fair share of the coarser side of the world, but this was something entirely different, and something she knew that a person could never truly get used to. The front end was torn up, the bumper ripped clean off and laying in the ditch twenty feet away. The hood was bent up and back, and the engine compartment was a gaping black maw that she was suddenly scared of, because even though she worked underneath hoods of cars all day, the engine was a different thing when it was exposed to the world like this, in a way it was never supposed to be. It was all curving tubes and rough black plastic and shocks of colour that looked like warnings. And then there was the metal of the body, pitted and folded and peeled back like it was nothing, and she realized sharply and suddenly how quickly rigid aluminum and solid metal framing could turn into paper, crumpled just as easily.

It didn't help that all the windows were blown out, airbags spilling out the empty frames, a heavy red streak smudged across one.

The truck rumbled distinctively behind her, and she shook the thoughts out of her head, bending down to run a quick hand over the undercarriage to make sure the tow slots were still intact. Killian lowered the truck bed as she walked around the car, checking for anything that might catch or fall off or explode if they moved it, and when she circled back to the front he was waiting for her with a hook in his left hand, staring at the torn apart car with a far away look in his eyes.

"The car's good to go." She said softly, pretending not to see the way he jumped slightly at her voice. She climbed up the gentle incline of the truck bed to grab the second tow hook, and when she came back his expression was so uncomplicatedly casual that she wasn't sure she hadn't imagined the look in his eyes only moments before.

They hooked the car up in silence, winching it onto and then levelling the bed of the truck as quickly as they could because, as Sheriff Nolan had predicted, the few cars that passed were starting to slow down to stare at the scene. On their way out, Killian stopped beside the sheriff, but the man just shook his head.

"The driver's in surgery right now, but that's all I know. I'll call you if I hear anything."

"Thanks, mate." Killian let the truck idle for a moment, biting his bottom lip and staring past the sheriff, and then saying in a too quiet-voice, "Make sure someone calls his family, eh?"

"Always do." The sheriff looked like he wanted to say something more, but he just slapped an open palm against the truck door and stepped back, ushering them back onto the road and away from the scene.

—-

Emma had never processed an accident before, but it ended up being a day-long process with extensive photos, endless paperwork, and half a dozen calls to the insurance company the sheriff had told them to notify. By the time they finished, the sun was edging towards the horizon and Killian looked as exhausted as she felt. He towed the wrecked car out to the back lot as she made some semblance of an effort to clean up the tools and shuffle the paperwork into a reasonable pile. When she looked up, he was leaning wearily against the frame of the garage door, and he just inclined his head towards the house when she caught his eye.

"I've got a pizza in the freezer if you'd like to stay, Swan." His words sounded more like _Please_.

"That sounds great, actually." She gave him a tired smile and abandoned her attempts at organizing, letting him lead the way up to the house. Even though she had been at the garage every day since coming into town, she had never actually been up to the house. It was an old farmhouse that had clearly seen better days, the paint work and flaking and a window broken in on the second floor. He saw her looking as they walked up the hill, through the overgrown grass on a path that had clearly been forged by just his feet, and he rubbed a spot behind his ear.

"There was a pretty nasty storm a couple of months ago and I've been meaning to get some glass for it, but I'm never really up there so…"

"The only thing I own that has anything close to windows is sitting in the back lot right now, so I am in _no_ place to judge."

"Bloody hell." He stopped dead. "I was going to start on your car this afternoon, wasn't I. Emma, I'm…"

"Hey. Don't worry about it." She nudged him between the shoulder blades until he started forwards again. "I've still got plenty to work off, and it's not like you were going to get that far today anyways. It can wait another day."

"It'll be at the top of my list tomorrow." He promised, leading her up the rickety steps onto his porch. He stopped again then, so suddenly that she ran straight into his back before she could stop herself. "I'm going to warn you now, Swan – I'm not much of a housekeeper, and I wasn't expecting company…"

"As long as you deliver on the promise of pizza, I don't care about anything else."

"A woman after my own heart." He flashed her that crooked smile and finally pushed his way into the house, holding the door until she was in behind him. He disappeared off to the left into what she assumed was the kitchen, but she stayed just inside the doorway for a moment, letting her eyes roam over the interior.

What immediately struck her was that this didn't look like a guy's house. The wallpaper was a muted yellow with an understated floral pattern, there were sheer white curtains on all the windows, and the dark wood furniture had graceful lines and though it had clearly seen some use, it had been cared for. It almost looked like this was someone else's house entirely, and he was just living in it; if not for the fact that she _knew_ he lived here alone, and for the clothes and newspapers and general _stuff_ strewn everywhere, she would have thought exactly that.

"The porch may be more comfortable, considering…" Killian reappeared, two bottles of beer in hand, and used one to gesture to the disarray of the living room.

"Porch sounds great." She accepted one of the bottles from him as he led her onto the porch and tipped it back, not realizing exactly how thirsty she had been until a third of the bottle was gone. "And thank you for this."

"This is twice now you've had to stay past closing – I think it's the least I can do."

"I don't mind." She sank into one of the chairs on the porch and let her eyes drift shut for a moment. It had been a long day, and between the lingering warmth of the setting sun and the sheer calm of sitting on a wide porch overlooking a field of swaying glass, she was dangerously close to falling asleep.

"So Swan," Killian said, and she reluctantly opened her eyes to look at him. "Where did you learn all of this?"

"All of what?"

"Mechanics. Because when you came in you told me you could change tires and oil, but so far you've handled everything I've given you and I haven't had to fix a single mistake, so I'm starting to bet that this is something more than a casual interest, but then you're not certified…"

"I…" The words caught in her throat. She hadn't expected him to ask anything as long as she was doing a good job, and there was really no easy way to tell this story without chasing him away. "I was a part of this…technical training program when I was 17, for a little under a year. It wasn't like a college thing, just…"

"Prison." He supplied easily, taking a swig of his own drink.

"What?"

"Don't look so shocked." He arched an eyebrow. "17 specifically, and for under a year? Might that be because you turned 18 and could no longer be held in juvenile detention?"

She nodded mutely. This was the part where he told her their deal was off and to get out. This was the part where she lost the car and this job and everything else.

"You could have just told me, Swan. I'm certainly not one to judge." He glanced over, and must have seen in her face that she felt numb from head to toe, because he chuckled lightly and tapped his bottle against hers. "Relax. I'm not going to do anything – I'm just curious."

"But…"

"I've had my suspicions for a while, Emma. Generally when serious mechanical knowledge comes without a certification, there's a reason why. And I know that they key to your car is in the shop, and since you didn't smash a window to get in I assumed you had found another way." He shrugged. "It doesn't much matter – hell, I spend some time myself when I was young."

"You were in prison." Her fear suddenly forgotten in light of his words, she arched a lazy eyebrow at him, the doubt thick in her voice. Yes, that smile of his screamed trouble every time he flashed it at her, and it's not that she doubted that he could have gotten himself into _actual_ trouble with that grin and his attitude, but he seemed…she felt her cheeks flush even as she thought it, but he seemed too _pretty_ for prison – the kind of man Hollywood would cast as a bad boy, instead of the bad boys who were bred in those cold cement block rooms.

"I'm downright offended that you don't believe me, Swan!' He waggled an eyebrow at her. "I was a pirate of the open road, each spin of my tires robbing men of victory, acclaim, their manhood…"

"Calm down, Shakespeare." She flicked a stray maple key at him, hitting him square in the temple.

"It was only briefly." He allowed. "Three days."

"They put you in prison for _three_ days?"

"Well…they had meant to hold me overnight, but my brother had ideas about how a longer stay would set me straight, and just…delayed picking me up."

"Oh yeah, a _real_ pirate of the road." she rolled her eyes. "That's called a police holding cell, Killian, not prison."

"They would have kept me longer, but they knew no brig could hold Killian Jones." He said, his voice full of fake bravado. She could tell he was about to continue, but a faint buzzing from inside cut him off. "And that would be our dinner."

He disappeared inside for a moment and she let her gaze follow him, a smile playing about her lips because didn't he just keep surprising her at every turn.

They dove into the pizza when he came back, eating in comfortable silence, the kitchen light shining through the window to cast a faint glow out onto the porch as the sun disappeared and the crickets started to chirp.

"Seriously, though." She said when they were both two slices in. "Why'd they arrest you?"

"Street racing." He shrugged a shoulder, and in it was a mix of remorse and casual pride. "There was this punk kid in a gaudy red Honda with this spoiler out the back, the exhaust making a hell of a racket, and he had this hat on backwards and the minute I pulled up to the stop light I just _knew_ that he would follow if I took off. So I did, and so did he, and neither of us cared that we were creeping up to 80 on a main road, but the cop we flew by sure did."

She couldn't help the laugh that escaped. "Tough breaks."

"Rookie mistake." He corrected with an answering grin, but it faded into something wistful and slightly empty. "When my brother picked me up, he made it very clear it wasn't going to happen again – said that screaming down the road feels powerful when you're behind the wheel but in a moment that can all change…" He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, and his knuckles around the beer bottle were suddenly white and bloodless. She saw the white of the air bag spilling out of the wreck's windows this afternoon, and she knew what he was seeing behind his lids. Then his eyes snapped open, and once again he looked perfectly, deliberately normal. "And yourself? Bank robbery? International espionage gone wrong? Paint an unflattering portrait of a public figure?"

"I…I was young, and…and for a moment I thought that the rules I had been telling myself to follow my entire life had been wrong." She picked at the crust of her third piece of pizza, suddenly not hungry. "Turns out I was wrong about _that_ , and I had to pay for my mistake."

He just watched her for a moment, and she wanted to drop her head into her hands for being so candid. There was a reason she didn't talk about her life at 17, but something about the way he had asked…and now he was just staring at her without saying a word, and…

"I can't say I'm sorry," He said quietly, and though his tone was deliberately light, it sounded significant. "Because I got a great mechanic out of it. But Emma?" He waited until she looked up, catching her gaze and holding it. "Mistakes usually take two people to make, and the other guy? I hope he got way worse."

"They never do." She muttered, turning back towards the field stretching out in front of them. This had taken a serious turn so fast, and she was still reeling over the fact that she had actually _told_ him – told him _all_ of it, or as close to all of it as anyone had ever gotten.

"They will." He promised, swivelling in his chair to look in the same direction, letting the conversation lapse into silence for a few breaths before turning back towards her. "How good are you at Go Fish?"

She flashed him a brilliant smile – once again, he knew what she needed even before she did. "Good enough to beat your ass."

—-

They played until the light spilling out the window became too dim to see by, and then one game more for good measure. True to her word, she beat him more times than she lost, but only just. No matter the score, it was just nice to sit here in the burgeoning nighttime with the crickets and cicadas coming to life around them. They took their time playing, talking about everything and nothing, and it should have terrified her to be so comfortable sitting here with him, but it just…didn't. In fact, by the time she realized that it was late enough that she should probably leave, she was wishing that they had started earlier so the night could have stretched on a little longer.

As she was standing to leave, he stood with her and that hand drifted up behind his ear again. She could feel his gaze on her as she stacked her bottle and napkin in the empty pizza box, until eventually he said, "Emma, if it's too late, or if after today…if you need some company tonight, you're welcome to my guest room if you'd like it."

"I…thank you." She gave him a soft smile. "But I'll be okay – it's a short walk back and I'm probably just going to go right to sleep." He just nodded his response, moving to lean against one of the posts as she started down the steps and out into the yard. "But Killian? Thanks. For all of this."

"My pleasure, Swan." He raised his hand in a half-wave, and even when she reached the road and looked back at the house, he was still standing there watching her go.

It was only after she got back to the Inn and into bed did she realize that when he asked if she needed to stay, what he really meant was _Would you?_


	5. Chapter 5

The garage was silent and empty when she got in the next morning, but the doors were thrown wide open and there was a car with its hood up ready and waiting, a brown paper bag sitting expectantly on the engine block. When she got there, she saw the note on it:

 _Swan,_

 _Had to run some errands in town. Check the load limit on the battery and change the rear brake pads._

 _Thanks,_

 _Killian._

 _Ps. Bear claw's for you._

A quick peek into the bag confirmed that there was, in fact, a gigantic pastry waiting. Even though she had already had a quick breakfast before coming in, she took a bite anyways - her eyes drifted shut of their own accord as she did. It was still warm.

She took her time with the battery, hooking it up to the meter slowly and leaning against the hood of the car while it ticked away. Then there was the call to the customer and the ten minutes it took her to convince him that yes, he did need to replace the battery if he wanted the car to work. They finally compromised on a gently used battery that she had seen in the storage room behind the office, and when she went to snag the replacement battery from the hapless pile of _stuff_ Killian called parts storage, she was feeling slightly triumphant. On her way back to the garage she flicked on the radio, hoping for something bright and summery to whistle along to and hopefully buoy her good mood. Though, of course, it was Killian's stupid country station. Her hand darted to the dial but she let it hover a moment, the strains of clear guitar strangely familiar and _right_ echoing through the garage. It felt like every other morning she had ever spent here, and who was she to mess with a good thing? She left it on as she continued into the garage, biting back the smile that threatened.

By the time Killian got back, she had the new battery hooked up and was sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor wiping a dark layer of dirt and oil off the brake rotors. His footsteps were silent on the hard floors, and she was whistling along to a song she (to her dismay) recognized, so when he said "Only like alt rock, eh?" she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Don't _do_ that." She threw her dirty rag at him and he just laughed, dodging it easily.

"And to think I left you breakfast!" He bent down to toss the rag back at her and in the same motion plucked a wrench from where she had set it on the engine block. "I've got to go back down to the marina so I'll probably be out for most of the day - you think you're alright to hold down the fort?"

"What are you doing down there?"

"There are still a few small craft that need work." He shrugged. "Small engine repair's not all that different from cars once you know what you're doing."

"I highly doubt that." She raised an eyebrow at his generalization. "But yeah, I'll be fine here. You need me to lock up too?"

"I'll be back well before then." He wandered around the shop, picking up scattered tools along his way. "Leroy, the man who owns the harbour, knows a thing or two and between us the work usually goes relatively quickly."

"You do this a lot, then?"

"It pays the bills." He shrugged a shoulder as he dug under the bench along the back wall for a tool box. "And he lets me dock there for free if I give a good rate to the marina, so it suits us both."

"Lets you dock...do you have a _boat_?" She just stared at him, trying to reconcile the man in a torn flannel top and coveralls tied at his waist with a magazine-perfect image she had in her mind of a boater with a pristine white sweater tied around his shoulders. Somehow, the two didn't match.

"Aye, a small one." He glanced back at her, his expression tinged with mirth. "I do have hobbies, Swan."

"Yeah, I just..." She shook her head. "Okay."

"Stop throwing dirty scraps of cloth at me and maybe I'll take you out on it sometime." He winked at her, way too much of a spring in his step as he sauntered across the floor and out the wide doors. "The marina's number is on my desk if you need me. See you this afternoon." Another twist of a smile and an errant wave, and then she heard the rumble of his truck disappear down the drive.

With the image of a yachting Killian with an oil-stained white sweater still in her head, she got back to work.

A leisurely morning slowly bled into afternoon, Emma's work falling into a comfortable rhythm. She slowly made her way through the line of waiting cars in the back lot, praying that the service list Killian kept on his desk was up to date. She was in the office consulting that list at two o'clock when she heard steps echo through the garage. She knew they weren't his - too loud, too heavy, and too sharp - so she plastered a customer-grade smile on her face before going back out into the garage proper.

That smile fell of her face fast as she saw Gold standing in the centre of the garage, pointing to the ceiling and saying something to the man standing beside him.

"Is there a problem with your repair, or is there something else I can help you with today?" She had been polite with the man before, but after hearing from Killian the things that Gold had threatened to do - the things he had allegedly _already_ done - she was having a hard time keeping her voice civil.

"Just taking a look around, dearie. Feel free to go back to your -" and his lip curled at this. "- work."

"Who's this?" She ignored the way a fire lit in her chest and nodded sharply at the man standing next to Gold. She knew she was being rude, but she really didn't care.

"An associate of mine."

"What's your name." Emma turned to the man, who looked slightly offput by what she knew was a fierce look in her eyes.

"It's, uh, Marcus." He stuck his beefy hand out for her to shake, and she softened slightly. He seemed...normal. She would have said _nice_ if he hadn't come in with a man she knew was anything but. "Marcus Johnson."

"Wait..." She had heard it once, but the name clicked suddenly and awfully in her mind. "Johnson as in _Johnson's Garage_?"

"That's the one!" He smiled a proud smile, and her heart broke slightly because even if he didn't necessarily know it, this man was helping Gold to ruin Killian's whole life, and all he was was proud of the business he had made.

"You understand that I'm going to have to ask you to leave if you don't have any work for me, right?" She turned back to Gold with an arched eyebrow.

"Are you sure that's wise, Ms. Swan? I'm sure by now Mr. Jones has told you about my considerable influence in town."

"He has." She stepped closer to him, ignoring Marcus Johnson and the way his eyes were as wide as saucers as he watched the exchange. She just moved slowly, let Gold's eyes trail her steps until she stopped toe-to-toe with him, and pitched her voice soft and cold as she said, "Ask me if I'm scared of you."

"You seem to think I have some sort of ulterior motive." Gold said, falling back half a step, still to all appearances the faultless gentleman she knew he wasn't. "I'm just a man conducting business." The smile he flashed her was tight and dangerous, and _that_ looked like him. "Tell Mr. Jones I stopped by, would you?" He guided his companion back out towards his car, and she leaned in the doorway as they turned back towards town.

"You can count on it." She muttered.

Killian got back later than promised, and by the time he did she was sitting in her car out back, feet propped on the dashboard and drinking cold coffee from the pot she had made before lunch. It was nearing 5 o'clock and the sun was in the Western sky, aligned perfectly to shine a beam through the garage and out the back door to paint the dash in shades of yellow. She had her eyes closed and let her mind run through all the times she had flown down different roads in this car, windows open and radio blaring, letting the sun filter through the windows and warm her shoulders as she drove. Even just sitting here, the familiar shape of the seat against her back the warm, comfortable smell of age and just _car_ made a spot in her chest ache with pure want - she couldn't wait until she was back on the road with nothing but the car that had never done anything but take her where she needed to be.

She heard his tires crunching on the gravel before the shape of the truck interrupted her thin stream of light, and she reluctantly opened her eyes and forced herself out of the car to go meet him. He looked tired as he deposited his took kit in the middle of the empty second repair bay, but when he saw her something in his face softened, and she stopped in her tracks.

"I ran into Gold on my way back." He said quietly. She could feel herself pale a shade because she could only imagine what he had said.

"Listen, if this is about me being rude, I'm sorry, but I just..."

"It's not about that." He took a few steps closer, and he broke into a gentle smile. "Though he did tell me what you said. But Emma...you didn't need to fight him for me. Heaven knows he's not going to make your life easy for the rest of your stay. You could have let him look and then left the arguing to me."

"Then he would have gotten to poke around, and he had that guy from out of town with him, and you can't argue away his memory of what he saw."

"Still, you didn't have to."

"Killian, of _course_ I did." She rolled her eyes at him, thoroughly exasperated. "Honestly, do you think I was just going to stand around and watch him roam around here? I _work_ here. This is my _life_ right now, and this is your _business_ , and for him to come in here with the plan to ruin all of this...I'm not just going to take it."

"I do appreciate that, Emma, but..."

"But nothing." She interrupted. "I can make my own decisions, and he is not even a drop in the ocean of assholes I've had to deal with."

"Then thank you." He smiled that same soft smile, and it was so different from the half-twist of his mouth that she had gotten used to - warmer, somehow, and it lingered even after he scooped his tool box back up and went to unload it on the rear bench.

"Are you worried that he's sniffing around?" She asked, following. "That his threat is...more than a threat now?"

"I suppose I should be." She could see his shoulders lift as he sighed. "But it's one thing or another with him, and besides all that there's still the threat that I'll sink the business myself." He turned around then, scrubbing a tired hand over his face, and there was a resignation in the gesture that made something in her chest shift.

"That's not going to happen." Her voice rang with sincerity and she could tell it surprised him, because he dropped his hand to just stare at her with a fullness in his eyes that she couldn't place. Then she saw the state of his face and bit back a laugh.

"What?"

"You've got a little something..." She gestured to her cheek, but it was a mockery of the state of his face, a handprint-sized streak of black grease smeared over both cheeks and the bridge of his nose. A small laugh bubbled out, and a sly grin unfurled on his face as he took a step towards her.

"Where do you mean, Swan? Here?" And before she could register the movement, he wiped both his hands over her cheeks and she could feel the grit of dirt against them.

"More like here." She grabbed his hand and smeared it up and over his forehead, his eyes sparkling beneath. She dragged his palm down over his cheek, but he didn't move to stop her - his gaze just stayed locked with hers, and something in it made her stop, her hand still holding his against his cheek. The blue of his eyes in the early evening sun, the way they were soft around the edges but still had a wicked glint to them, the way he was just _looking_ at her with gratitude and kindness and not a trace of judgement...the hours they had spent together trading jokes back and forth across the shop flooded her mind, the rough cadence of his voice as he told her about how thoroughly he knew loss, the bright look on his face when they had breakfast by the water that quiet morning, the easy way they sat side by side on his porch...

He didn't pull away as she stared at him, remembering the moments that had filled their past weeks together, so she released his hand to cup his cheek herself, and leaned in closer as his breath caught in his throat.

"Swan..."

"You can say no." She whispered, her voice low and suddenly ragged. It would be well within his rights to tell her to stop - he barely knew her, she was attributing too much to the little moments they had shared, she was reaching for something she had never been allowed to have so why now...

"Not on your life." He murmured back, and then his lips were on hers.

His hand drifting up to knot in her hair was gentle, and her palm against his cheek was soft, but the kiss was anything but. She had never even entertained the idea of _this_ with him, but what flowed between them felt like it had been building for years, and it was _effortless_. She swayed closer until they were flush up against one another, and his hand resting on her back only pulled her tighter. His lips were rough with the dirt on his face, and they were salty from being by the sea all day, and she knew that her own were bitter with day-old coffee, but it was _perfect_. It was messy and abrupt and her head was spinning with how fast it had all happened but how much she _wanted_ it, but it was _them_ through and through.

The moment they stood there wrapped in each other seemed endless, and it was either the smell of gasoline or the smell of _him_ or the pure wash of emotions that came with this finally happening - because now that it had she realized exactly how long ago it should have - but by the time he let out a heavy, shaky breath against her lips, she had to grab a fistful of his shirt to stop from swaying.

She pulled back to rest her forehead against his, and his thumb rubbed against the back of her head gently as his eyes stayed trained on hers, hopelessly blue and _brilliant_ in the space between them. She smiled softly. It felt like all the years of being left had suddenly been stripped away and here, in this small peaceful pocket of the world they had made for themselves, nothing had ever been wrong.

"Swan, that was..."

"A thank you." She whispered, pulling away for real and letting him see her smile. "For breakfast. And, you know, everything else."

A slow, answering smile spread over his face, and she could see in the shape of it all the things he wanted to say in response. Instead, he shifted just a hairsbreadth forward and her eyes fluttered shut, but the brush of his lips was soft and gentle. It was short and barely there, lighter even than the breath he had let out only a moment before, but she could feel in that whisper-soft touch everything that had brought them together.

"For being you." He murmured against her lips, then pulled back to smile that same soft grin that she was beginning to think he wore only for her. "And, you know, everything else."


	6. Chapter 6

Emma rolled over for what had to be the tenth time in as many minutes, glaring at the numbers on the clock flashing well past two in the morning. She had been in bed for hours, and even though it was almost not worth it to try and sleep now, and even though she could feel a headache creeping to life behind her eyes, no amount of laying absolutely still or listening to slow, soft music or ordering herself to _stop thinking_ was bringing her any closer to drifting off. Even more than it annoyed her, her restlessness _terrified_ her because she couldn't afford to be this silly or this hopeful.

That, and she just wasn't the _kind_ of person who stayed up all night thinking about one kiss one time with one man.

Still, she couldn't help but ghost her hands over the stiff wool of her blanket and recall the rough stubble of his cheek under her palm, tilt her face towards the open window and let the soft breeze call to mind his breath against her lips as he whispered a thank you, let her thoughts linger on the way her scalp still tingled where his thumb had rubbed against it...

She glanced at the clock again. She had to be up, reasonably awake, and in that shop _with him_ in just over four hours, and she could not be thinking things like this if she expected to last the day. It was ridiculous, fanciful, and such an impossibility of ever turning into anything, but still she wondered if he, too, lay awake in that empty house up on the hill, thinking about the way the two of them together felt like belonging.

She only slept two hours, and even then her dreams were of his hands against the warm, perfect yellow of her car.

The morning dawned crisp and clear, and by the time Emma made her way to the garage - half an hour later than usual because she had downed nearly a full pot of coffee at the diner and it had still been nowhere near enough - the sun was climbing steadily in the sky, promising a vicious heat later in the day. She could see from the base of the driveway that Killian had every door in the garage thrown open in an attempt to catch the stagnant breeze, and with the shop so open to the world she could also hear that he had the country station on and blaring.

Killian himself was out front, wiping down an old Volvo that was shimmering with beads of water. The car was ugly but pristine, and it was clear he was taking his time with it, wiping streaks from the windows with painstaking precision. He was so caught up that she was two feet from him before he heard her footsteps crunch in the gravel and whirled around to face her. He opened his mouth but no words followed, so for a moment the two of them just stared at each other. The skin around his eyes was soft and tired, but his smile when he flashed it at her a few beats later was genuine and he just looked _alive_ there in the early sun.

"You ever replaced an air conditioner, Swan?" He asked in greeting. His fingers drummed against the hood of the car as he did, and now that he was speaking to her his eyes were skirting past hers to look at everything and anything else.

"Uh...not really, no. Why?"

"Because I'm going to teach you later." He jerked his chin up towards the garage, and something about it was stilted and rough. If not for the smile still on his face, she would have thought he was angry at her. "It's the CR-V up there, but there's a Buck Electra out back that needs a new timing belt, if you want to get started on that while I finish up here."

"I...yeah. Sure." She shook her head, bemused, and started up towards the garage. Even with her back to him, she could feel his tight, restless energy humming behind her, almost like there was something he was-

"Emma?" He called out. She half turned towards him, and he quirked a grin that was something between his usual, cocky twist of a smile and something young and innocent and wide open and _be patient, I'm not used to this._ Something in her chest shifted at the honesty in that expression, at the uncertainty that made him suddenly stiff and awkward, at the almost-crack in his voice when he said, "What, no good morning kiss?"

The words were barely out before she laughed, free and breathless and relieved and _there he is_ , and his deep chuckle joined a moment later. This was new ground but they hadn't changed, not really.

"Buy me breakfast again and we'll see." She winked at him, walking backwards up to the garage so she could see the crooked flash of his familiar smile finally unfurl.

It only took him another half hour to finish with the car out front, so when he came to hover by the Buick's front bumper, she had only just gotten the old timing belt off. He watched her for a moment as she ran the belt through her fingers, shaking her head softly at the wear of it.

"Whoever's car this is is lucky this thing didn't snap on them weeks ago." She held the belt up so he could see the fibrous wall on the smooth side. "Look at that."

"Believe it or not, I've seen worse." He tossed the belt on top of the engine and inclined his head towards the inside of the garage. "Would you prefer I wait until you're done to start this air conditioner?"

"Nah. This can wait." She wiped her hands on the legs of her coveralls and followed him over to the Honda. Impossibly, it was warmer inside than it was out, and it wasn't even noon yet. "But please tell me this is a quick job so I can go back and hide in the shade?"

"I admire your optimism, Swan, but alas." He gestured grandly to the Honda's open hood and she didn't like the wicked glint in his eye. "We're replacing the compressor, expansion valve, and condenser to start, and maybe more depending on what we run into. But want to know the fun part?"

"I don't think I do, but okay."

"We get to take the front bumper off first to get at it."

Emma looked down at the bumper, smooth on one side but severely dented on the other, and when she turned back to him her eyebrow was already raised. "You expect that to come off?"

"Why do you think I recruited you for the job?" His grin was only growing wider.

"Remind me to murder you later." She said genially, but she accepted the screwdriver he held out and went to the un-dented side of the bumper to start loosening the clips that held the cover on. He smirked at her choice, but did he honestly expect her to take the side that was practically punched _into_ the engine? While he wrestled his clips loose, she undid the bolts in the wheel well and on the underside of the car, including those on his side, and when she stood back up with the bolts in her hand she flashed him a wicked smile. "You know, when you said you were three hundred, I didn't really believe you, but seeing the speed you work..." she shrugged. "Sure you can handle this, old man?"

"Only if you can." He winked at her, nudging her back over to her side of the bumper, and _how_ was he making this enjoyable? "I'll count to three, and then we'll both pull - but you'll have to be careful, because I'd prefer not to crack this whole thing in half if your end comes flying off and mine stays attached to the car. Got it?"

"Yes, thanks, I think I understand the principle of force." She rolled her eyes.

"If it happens, don't say I didn't warn you." He just shrugged in return. "Ready? One, two, _three_."

With a grunt, he yanked hard on the collapsed corner of the bumper, which barely shifted in place. A gentle tug and far less theatrics brought Emma's corner free, and she slowly worked her way across the front, working it loose, until the plastic started caving towards the largest of the dents.

"Knew this wouldn't be easy." Killian said, bracing his foot on the wheel as he tried again.

"Don't strain yourself, grandpa - I'll grab a crowbar or something." Emma knew she had seen one somewhere, maybe on the back bench...but she had barely turned to scan the mess of tools along the wall before she heard another grunt, the echo of plastic against a metal frame, and a loud " _Bloody hell!"_

"Don't tell me you snapped it." She whirled back around, expecting to see half the bumper on the floor, but it was still stubbornly intact. Then she noticed how his right fist was pressed firmly into his left palm, and how blood was already welling from between his fingers to drop vivd and red onto the concrete. "Jesus, Killian." Three wide, quick steps and she was right next to him, and it only took a quick brush of her fingertips against his wrist for him to move his right hand so she could see the mess of a gash that cut straight along his palm.

"What did you _do?"_ She asked, tilting it slightly to catch the light.

"I pulled." He smiled at her, but it was shaky.

"Couldn't have waited for me to find a crowbar, could you?" She grabbed a rag out of her pocket and wrapped it tight around his hand, not letting the sound of his short hiss persuade her wrap it any looser. A mostly clean rag wasn't the ideal solution, but it would at least keep the wound covered until they got it some proper attention. "This might need stitches."

"No." His voice was a burst of sound, the wobbly smile gone from his face and a slightly frantic look creeping at the edges of his eyes. "I'll bandage it, keep some pressure on it, and it'll be fine."

"Killian, have you _seen_ it? Have you seen the _floor_?" She gestured to the smattering of drops on the floor, and then looked pointedly at him. "This isn't something a bandaid is going to fix."

"I know, Swan, just...I know what I'm doing. Just let me, please."

"Fine." She released his hand, perhaps slightly more abruptly than she should have. "Do what you need to do. Go wrap some dirty rag around it. Get an infection for all I care. Bleed to death on your front porch."

"Emma..."

"Seriously. You're making a mess." She shoved him - but gently - between his shoulder blades. "Go fix that and just...stay at the house for a bit, okay? Let it at least _try_ to heal a bit?"

"I'll be fine. I'll bandage it up and I'll be right back down."

"Killian." Her gaze snapped to his and she could feel something dangerous in it. It was one thing for him to injure himself on the job, and it was another thing entirely for him to be so cavalier about the result. "No. You're staying up there, you're letting it stop bleeding at the very least, and you're trusting me to handle myself here."

"Of course I trust you, Swan. It's just..." He trailed off as he studied her for a moment, saw in her face how unwilling she was to compromise on this, and nodded once. "Fine. I'm only a few hundred feet away if you need me. And I'll be back-"

"Christ, just _go_." She nudged him again, less gently this time, and watched for a moment as he walked up towards the house. "Killian?" She waited until he turned and offered him a slightly apologetic smile. "Just..wash it, okay? I really don't want to have to amputate your hand today."

"As you wish, Swan." She could tell he wanted to salute her, or something equally ridiculous, but with both hands pressed together to staunch the bleeding, he just tipped his head a fraction in her direction.

"Idiot." A smile played on her lips and she shook her head at him, watching him walk away for a moment before heading back to the garage.

Two hours later, she was sitting on the floor, a maintenance guide and printouts from Killian's computer spread out all around her and the Honda sitting like a challenge before her. She had looked through his maintenance list after he left to try and find something she knew _how_ to do, but nothing made as much sense as trying to continue with the air conditioner, even if she did have to muddle through it. Despite what Killian said, she thought that maybe she could get at least some of the repairs done with the bumper cover still on the car, and the videos she had looked up in the office had made it look so easy...

About ten minutes with the car told her that those videos were an abject lie.

She was considering giving up, and probably _should_ _have_ an hour ago, but she had never developed the ability to back down from a challenge even though she was woefully unqualified to meet it. So here she was, drowning in a pile of instructions that weren't really helping.

Over the rustling papers and the sound of ciccadas buzzing outside, she heard gravel crunching in the front lot and stifled a smile. Despite her instructions to take it easy, Killian had been finding reasons to pop into the garage - he left his hat on the back workbench, there was an invoice in the office he wanted to flip through, he wanted a cup of coffee and he didn't want to make a new pot in his kitchen...every time she told him to go back up to the house and stop bothering her, but he never listened.

"For the _hundredth time_ , Killian, I don't-" she twisted her body so she could see him walk in, but her admonishment trailed off as she realized the man hovering in the open doorway wasn't Killian, but Gold's would-be partner Marcus Johnson. Gold wasn't with him, but Emma's spine tensed as she stood nonetheless.

"Afternoon." Johnson bobbed a nod at her, and he looked nervous.

"Afternoon." She said, but she didn't invite him any further than the doorway, and he didn't push. She just went to stand opposite him, darting a quick glance up at the porch of the main house, half-hoping that Killian wasn't there to see Johnson here again, half-hoping that he was. "What can I help you with? Or are you just here to _look_ _around_?"

"Nothing, and no." Johnson rubbed a hand over his head and his gaze dropped to the ground between them for a moment before flashing up to hers. She got the sense, again, that he wasn't the same type of man as Gold. "I wanted to apologize for our meeting yesterday."

"You didn't do anything wrong." She said, letting him see her eyes soften a fraction. "Nothing to apologize for."

"No, let me say it. Please. I didn't realize when we came that it wasn't something Mr. Gold had discussed with Mr. Jones, or with you, beforehand. Maybe it wasn't wrong, but it was impolite."

"Then thank you." She offered him a small smile, and the one she got in return was wide and honest and relieved. "I wasn't the most welcoming either, so I should really be the one apologizing to you."

"I wouldn't hear of it." He shook his head, that friendly smile still plain on his face, and then he looked past her to her spread of papers on the floor and the half-off bumper cover. "Having some trouble?"

"Air conditioner."

"Easier with the bumper cover off, you know."

"We tried that." She wandered a few steps further into the garage, toeing the bumper where it was bent and cratered. "It's on there pretty good."

"I've got a few tricks, if you'd like." He inclined his head towards the whole scene, and there was something about the set of his eyes that was so plainly helpful and genuine that reminded her of the pride in his voice when he told them about his garage.

So she said yes.

It became abundantly clear in the first twenty minutes that Marcus Johnson knew what he was doing. He showed Emma how to snake a rubber mallet up and under the wheel well and the exact angle to hit while he pulled on the bumper which, of course, slipped right off as easily as if it had never been stuck. Then there was the way he pulled out the broken parts, the sheer _familiarity_ of it, that was so telling of the years he'd been doing this - longer than her, longer than Killian - even more so than the grey sprinkled through his thinning hair or the way the references he dropped as they talked were all years out of date.

Throughout it all, he told her about his family - wife who he'd met in the office he'd worked at briefly as a young man, son who lived in Taiwan with Johnson's first grandchild, daughter who ran a bakery in the same town as his garage, and who made the best croissants outside of France. And then there was his business - the endless, unabashed story of how he had started working out of the driveway of his family's home and now had a four-bay shop with fifteen employees and a laundry list of loyal customers. He shone when he talked about it, and she could see with astonishing clarity why he was working with Gold - the business was his life, a third child, and the chance to expand and see it grow even further...by the time he was done talking, she almost wanted the deal to go through, too.

She didn't say much about herself, but by the time she screwed in the last bolt on the new condenser, he was laughing at her jokes and when he clapped her on the back and told her she was practically an expert now, she let him see the wide smile on her face. He was just wiping his hands on his jeans and telling her that he'd bring her one of his daughter's croissants the next time he was in town, when Killian walked in.

Emma's back was to the garage doors so she didn't see Killian freeze in the doorway, didn't see his eyes darken a shade as he took in the scene, didn't see how his steps turned heavy and purposeful as he walked over, until he was right next to her and facing Johnson, his voice cool and barely together as he said, "I don't remember hiring another mechanic."

"Killian..." Emma's pinkie brushed his wrist but he didn't notice or didn't care, too busy staring down at the hand Johnson had extended.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here or I would have said something." Johnson said, shaking Killian's hand firmly. He had on that same slightly apologetic smile as he had earlier, and Emma willed Killian to look at her so she could tell him - with her eyes or her words or a slap upside the head - that he was being an idiot and that she would have kicked Johnson out the moment he arrived if he was anything other than a genuinely nice guy.

"You'll understand why I'm not predisposed to believing you, I'm sure."

"I do, and that's why I came over." Johnson shot a glance at Emma, and Killian had to see it, but he didn't so much as turn his head. "I wanted to apologize for the impression I made earlier, and I wanted you to know that it's not my intention to sneak around another man's garage without him knowing."

"Then what were you doing in mine just now?"

"I told him it was fine, Killian." Emma said, and _now_ she had his attention. "He came to apologize, and then he helped me with that stupid air conditioner. That's it."

Killian was silent, just staring at her, and she knew he was taken aback - rightly so, because she had been the opposite of friendly with this same man only yesterday - but after a long moment he just nodded slowly.

"Then thank you." He said grudgingly. "But only because I trust _her_ , not because I trust you."

"That's fair." Johnson bobbed a curt not at Killian, and then flashed Emma a smile. "Emma, it's been a pleasure."

"You still owe me a croissant." She reminded him with a grin of her own. "And honestly, thank you. I'd still be on the floor with that manual if you hadn't come along."

"You would've figured it out. And I really did enjoy it. This place, the two of you...reminds me of me and my wife when we started out." He half-waved at them both, and ambled back towards the door and down the drive. Killian was silent, and Emma was just stunned. _You remind me of me and my wife_. She should call after him, tell him that it's not like that, tell him she's just here for her car...

"Interesting fellow." Killian finally said, breaking the silence with a voice that was maybe slightly strained.

"He's actually _nice."_ Shesaid, snapping out of her thoughts. Then she remembered his tone when he had come in, and the silent promise she had made herself halfway through his conversation with Johnson that she was going to give him a hard time about it. She let a sly grin unfurl on her face, and punched him in the arm. "You _asshole_."

He just laughed.

She forgot what his reason was, but Killian made an excuse to hang around the garage for the rest of the day while Emma worked, fooling around with his eternal mess of tools on the back bench, flipping through a parts catalogue on the floor beside her as she switched out the brake pads on an ancient Buick, and generally getting in her hair in every possible way. She didn't mind - frankly, she preferred the garage filled with his stupid jokes and dry comments than empty without him - but it also meant that she caught herself talking to him instead of working more times than not, and that by the time they both realized that the sun was just a memory in the sky, it was nearing ten o'clock.

She hadn't been tired before, but the short walk from the garage to town gave her long day a chance to catch up with her, so by the time she got to her room at the Inn she was ready to crawl into bed.

Her bag sitting in the hall outside her door should have been the first indication that _bed_ was not in her immediate future. She slung the strap of her duffel over her shoulder and went downstairs, knocking maybe a _bit_ too loud on the owner's apartment behind the Diner. The woman - she had told Emma the first night to call her Granny - opened the door with a fierce look on her face and an admonishment clearly ready on her lips, but when she saw who it was her expression fell into something...something almost _ashamed_.

"Please tell me someone left my stuff in the hall by mistake?" Emma asked, even knowing that was a long shot.

"I'm sorry, dear. The room's booked up. When you booked the room I didn't think you'd be staying so long, and this was a standing reservation."

"Can I switch rooms, then?"

"I'm afraid not." Emma had never seen Granny without a steely look in her eyes, be it booking rooms at the Inn or serving coffee at the Diner, but the look in the woman's eyes now was apologetic and flighty, barely meeting Emma's as she said, "All our rooms are booked. I'm sorry."

Emma felt herself go almost numb as Granny shut the door softly, and she had a sneaking suspicion that this had nothing to do with bookings and everything to do with her conversation with Gold the day before. If that was the case, she knew there was no reason to try and track anything else down in town, either.

The trek back to the garage gave her plenty of time to admonish herself for baiting Gold the day before - he was a snake in a man's clothing, but if she had just been _civil_ she would be in bed right now instead of walking up a dark road with a heavy bag hitting her in the backs of the legs to sleep in a car that didn't even start. Her temper had gotten her in trouble before, and she really never did learn.

The lights were on in Killian's house but the garage was dark when she got there, the doors locked, and she prayed that he hadn't locked her car after that night she had broken into it. Yes, she could probably do it again, but finding a piece of wire stiff enough to pop the lock had been a miracle the first time, let alone twice. She was lucky, though, because when she tried the door handle it swung open immediately, and even though the situation was less than ideal, she smiled softly at it. Yes, the car was realistically just a pile of metal and leather and plastic, but the door swinging open at the end of a long day was welcoming in an almost _sentient_ way she knew, objectively, a car could never _really_ be, but somehow this one was. She slung her duffel into the back seat and slipped into the driver's side, slamming the door and letting the silence inside the car wrap around her. She smoothed her hands over the leather of the steering wheel and let the feeling of it ground her, breathed in the familiar scent of leather and cloth and the formless haze of heat from the long day in the lot, and let it convince her that everything was fine, it was going to be fine.

She closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the seat, and let it all wash over her: the long trip from Boston, the miles of road she put behind her in this car, the hours in this garage with the sweet-scented breeze blowing through the doors...a corner of her brain told her that she should probably move to the back unless she wanted to fall asleep curled up in the small between the seat and the steering wheel, but before she could make a decision one way or another, a small breath of wind ghosted over her arm and the car dipped to the side as someone opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.

"You can't sleep in here again." Killian said without preamble. She opened one eye and arched an eyebrow in return.

"Last time I checked, I was out of options."

"I thought you were staying at Granny's."

"The rooms are all booked." Emma said with a sigh. There was a hint of bite in her voice, but it was muted by the late, quiet night. "And I didn't even bother to check anywhere else, but-"

"They'd all be booked as well." Killian set a heavy, deliberate hand down on the dash, finger by finger, and something about the caution of it told her that he wanted to hit it hard in frustration. "Granny hasn't been fully booked since she opened the Inn, and she bloody well isn't now. I told you Gold would get you back, didn't I?"

"You did." She conceded.

He was quiet for a moment, let the space fill with the choices she could have made by hadn't, and then tapped two fingers resolutely against the centre console and opened his door.

"Right then." He said. "You're coming with me."

"Excuse me?"

"Emma, you're not spending the rest of your time here sleeping in the back seat of this car." He rolled his eyes like it was preposterous, like she hadn't done exactly that for weeks at a time before she got here. "And I want to start on it tomorrow, and I'm not loading it on and off the jack every day just so you can sleep in it when I have a perfectly good guest room at the house."

"Killian, I can't."

"You can, you will, and what's more you have no other choice." He ducked out of the car and reached into the back to grab her duffel. For lack of a better idea, she got out too, staring at him over the hood. She saw the flash of his teeth as he shot her a smile, and something in her chest shifted. "Emma, if you really don't want to, I'll help you find somewhere else - my friend Dave would let you stay with him and his wife, no questions asked. But the guest room is yours if you want it." She could see the silhouette of his hand coming to rub behind his ear before he continued. "It won't mean anything more than a place to stay, if you're worried about-"

"I'm not...that's not it." She thumbed at the groove of the doorframe where it met the roof, not looking at him. "What you're doing already is more than I-"

"If you're about to say it's more than you deserve, Swan, don't. I'm sure we'd disagree, and then we'd be here all night." He hefted her bag onto his shoulder, no small feat considering one hand was still wrapped in a tight white bandage, and inclined his head towards the house. "Let's just say I want to, alright? For my best mechanic." Even in the dark, she knew he was smiling his wide, teasing smile as he repeated the words she had said to him weeks before.

"I'm your only mechanic, you idiot." She said in response, but jogged around the car to follow him up to the house. She heard more than saw his exaggerated shrug, and if he had turned around right then he would have seen the soft smile that she couldn't keep off her face.

It should have terrified her, how comfortable the shape of the house looked lit up at the top of the hill. It should have terrified her how readily she said yes to his offer, and how much it felt like she belonged in this place after so short a time.

It should have, but like so many things with him, it just didn't.


	7. Chapter 7

As Killian led her up the stairs to the second floor of his home, Emma realized with sudden clarity that even though she had been here before, their porch dinner was nothing at all compared to this. His voice was slightly muted as he apologized for the shirt draped over the railing, the dishes still on the kitchen table, the mess of magazines and newspaper spilling from the couch. Even though every other word out of his mouth was an apology, though, she didn't miss the way his hand trailed along the bannister as they climbed the stairs, or the easy way he sidestepped a floorboard that squeaked loudly when she stepped on it - the gestures that told her even though his words should have read as ashamed, everything about him here just screamed _home_.

They passed two closed doors and a bathroom before he stopped in front of the last room in the hall, toeing the door open with his foot and rubbing a spot behind his ear as he said, "The sheets might be a bit dusty but they're clean - I hope this is alright."

"Killian, my plan up until now was to sleep in the backseat of a car." She said. He didn't look convinced, so she let her hand drift over to nudge the back of his, and when he looked up at her she smiled softly. "Seriously. It's perfect. Thank you."

"Well..." There was a faint hint of colour in his cheeks as his gaze slid away from hers, but the corner of his lips twitched in an answering smile. "You're more than welcome, Swan." He lowered her bag to the floor just inside the doorway and his arm bobbed in a half-wave as he took a few uneven steps back. She stifled a smile because _this_ was new - a far cry from the cocky, teasing swagger she was used to seeing from him. "I'll see you in the morning?"

"You know where I'll be." She cracked a smile and ducked into the room to spare them both the awkward shuffle in the hall, but leaned back against the wall for a moment after she did. There was something in her chest that kept tugging whenever that confident grin of his faltered and she saw someone beneath it who was slightly unsure of where this was leading, just like she was. She pressed her heels of her hands hard against her closed lids - t _his is not something you are allowed to think when you're just going to leave -_ until the swirls of colours that bloomed behind them stopped resolving themselves in the shape of his crooked grin.

The first night in any new house was always the hardest for her, so it took her a long time to get to sleep that night and even then, it was fitful. No matter where she was, there was something about the sound of the wind outside of a new room in a new place that always made her think of how many places she had tried - and failed - to call home, and how many places she wished she could forget.

Even though she fell asleep well after midnight, she still woke with a start early enough the next morning that the dawn was only a suggestion at the edge of the horizon. In the strange lull between the crickets dying down and the birds waking, the house was so, so quiet. It was almost another world compared to the eternal hum of noise that had always been outside her window in Boston. Even at Granny's there had always been the clatter of dishes in the Diner or the sound of Granny's TV downstairs or the whir of the industrial fan on the roof outside. Here, it was just the occasional creak of the house as it settled and the tangle of her own thoughts. It was nice, in its own way, but she knew that at this point the sheer _lack_ of noise would be too...loud for her to fall back to sleep.

Instead of even trying, she padded gingerly across the floor to a bookshelf by the window, running her fingers over the dusty spines as she shifted from foot to foot. The floor was cold and the wind wafting through the open window was sharp and fresh. She wished absently that she had packed a better selection of clothing before leaving Boston - something that included more socks and fewer t-shirts - but she settled for grabbing a thick book with a helicopter on the cover and huddling back underneath the sheets. She was about to head back to bed when she noticed a flicker of light cutting a swath out of the dark driveway. Upon closer inspection, she saw that it was filtering through the back door of the garage, and suddenly the overwhelming silence of the house made so much more sense - it was so quiet because there was only one person in it.

For a moment, she wrestled with the idea of going down there, but it wasn't her place to do anything about it, and generally when someone went somewhere so early it was because they wanted - needed - to be alone. So she let herself get lost in the tale of an ebola pandemic and the heroic ex-RAF pilot who saved the day, until the sky turned grey and then pink with the dawn. Despite the chill that was still in the air, the prospect of breakfast propelled her out of bed. A quick glance out the window told her that the garage lights were still on, but she couldn't tell if he was still there or not. Her thoughts still very much down in the garage, she wasn't paying attention to anything as she opened the door, and nearly tripped over a soft...something piled in the threshold. She picked it up gingerly and let it unfurl as she did. It was plaid, incredibly soft, and only once it was fully unfolded did she realize it was a flannel bathrobe. A note had fluttered to the ground and she picked it up, once again feeling something pull in her chest. In surprisingly beautiful handwriting, the note said simply _It's cool in the mornings._

She hesitated a moment but she slipped the robe on anyways even though it felt like a promise she knew she couldn't keep. He kept giving and giving and even though she spent her days in his garage, she knew she was nowhere close to paying him back for any of it, least of all the car.

When Emma got downstairs, a cursory glance through his cupboards revealed that there wasn't any real _food_ there as much as there were condiments and things in boxes, so she settled on pancakes and made a mental note to at least buy him some groceries to make up for invading his space. She had just spooned the first dollop of batter into the frying pan when Killian came in, his footsteps near-silent in a worn pair of boots and his hands careful against the door as he coaxed it shut softly. He wasn't looking at her as he toed off his boots, and he looked...younger as he did. He was wearing a pair of pajama pants with nautical flags printed on them, and a worn grey hoodie, and as he scrubbed a weary hand through his dark mess of hair things just felt _right_ with him there, edges softened by the early morning, and her across the room making breakfast for them both. Before she had a chance to dwell on _that_ thought, his gaze drifted up and over to her, faltering for a moment in surprise.

"Swan. Didn't expect to see you up so early."

"You know what they say about the early bird." She shrugged a bit and _God, could you have picked anything stupider to say_ and nodded down at the frying pan. "You want pancakes?"

"It will be a very cold day in Hell when I turn down a free breakfast." He wandered into the kitchen and busied himself with the coffee machine, and they both worked in amicable silence for a few minutes until the sound of the coffee brewing filled the kitchen and she had a reasonable stack of pancakes split between the two plates beside her. He slid behind her to grab syrup from the fridge and as he placed two fingers on the small of her back as a warning not to back up into him, she realized with painful clarity how far this thing between them had already gotten without her even realizing.

"Table alright with you, Swan?"

"What?" She shook her head slightly and met his gaze.

"Are you alright with breakfast at the table? I'd suggest the porch but as you have your hands full already..." He gestured to the plates she had in both hands, his point made even stronger by the fact that his hands were full with syrup and cutlery, and she nodded.

He pushed a few old dishes out of the way as they sat down, and grimaced a bit as he did. He was so clearly not used to company, and understanding echoed in a hollow space behind her breastbone because she knew what it was like - how easy it was to stop caring about the small things - when you only had yourself.

"Thank you for these." He said, snapping her out of her thoughts. He was drenching his pancakes in syrup and looked genuinely pleased at the meal he had before him, but she just snorted a laugh at his sentiment because here she was staying at his house, wearing his bathrobe, eating food that she had made from ingredients in his kitchen, and he was thanking _her_.

"I should be the one thanking you for letting me root around your kitchen uninvited, among other things - thank you, by the way, for the bathrobe - but you're welcome."

"Except you _were_ invited. My offer of a room pertains to the whole house, Emma, not just one corner of it."

She had a response - she knew she did, somewhere - but instead she found herself just staring at him as he dug into his breakfast, her chest strangely tight as his words played over and over in her head. Eighteen years bouncing from house to house and never had anyone so quickly made her feel like she was welcome.

He took her silence in stride, mopping up syrup with his pancakes for several long moments while she puller herself together, then nudged her foot gently with his and offered her the gentlest smile when she looked up at him, inclining his head towards the door.

"Finish your breakfast, Swan. I've got a surprise for you."

Between finishing her breakfast, pouring herself a cup of the coffee that was _finally_ ready, cleaning the dishes - he told her to leave them, she told him he was a heathen - and getting dressed, it was nearly an hour later that she finally let him lead her out the door and down the driveway. They were just going to the garage, she knew - they had to be because there was nothing else around - but still he insisted that she close her eyes as they got closer, steering her by her shoulders through the office and into the garage proper.

"Killian, if this is another air conditioner, I swear to..." He nudged her shoulder halfway through her sentence and she opened her eyes, only to forget the rest of her words as her gaze fell on the car before her. Her car. It was _her car_. It was up on the jack and half-disassembled, and the paint was already streaked with grease where his hands had rested, but it was _hers_.

"Killian, I..."

"I can arrange for another air conditioner though, if you'd prefer." He was wearing his familiar smile, the one that put a wicked glint in his eye and fit his features perfectly, and between that and the sight of her car in front of her she couldn't _not_ kiss him.

So she did.

She could tell by the short, shocked breath he let out that he hadn't been expecting it, but his surprise lasted a fraction of a second and then he was right there with her, arms around her with one hand soft at the base of her neck and the other pulling her towards him. Her hands were threaded into his hair and she was so close to him that she could feel the rise and fall of his chest as if it were her own, and they were just _together_ so completely and so immediately that it felt like they had always been.

He was the first to pull away, but only enough so that he could look down at her with a playful note in his blue eyes as he said, "That's not a thank you I would usually accept from one of my clients _or_ one of my employees, but for you I'll make an exception."

"You say that like you don't like it."

"Don't forget, Swan," He said, leaning a hairsbreadth closer so his nose just brushed hers and she could feel his breath against her lips as he spoke. "I'm not the one who started it." He pulled away properly then, his eyes still dancing with laughter, and walked over to rest a gentle hand on the bumper of her car. "I've got some of the old parts out and by the end of the day I'll have the rest of them. We're still waiting on one part but by the time I need it, it should be here."

"I trust you." She let her hand trail over the curve of the wheel well as she came to stand next to him, looking at the knot of tubes and sleek curves of metal under the hood, very deliberately _not_ looking at him as she bumped his shoulder with her own. "But all kissing aside, Killian, _thank you_. I didn't...this means a lot."

"It _is_ my job, and that was our deal."

"Still." She knew what she was trying to say - that it wasn't just that he was doing the work at all, it was that he was doing it right. It was that he had told her up front that a quick fix wouldn't work. It was that the parts he had already removed were laid out meticulously on a drop sheet on the floor next to the jack, wiped clean. It was that she could tell even without him saying that he wasn't doing the work to get it done, he was doing the work to do it _right_. It was that he had seen right from the first moment that she didn't just need this car to get her home, she needed it to _find_ home. She needed it to _be_ home.

"Still nothing, Swan." He slid his hand across the hood to nudge hers softly until she looked up at him. There was something heavy behind his eyes but his smile was still a gentle, beautiful thing. "But there's a line of oil changes waiting for you if you're feeling particularly grateful."

"Normally I'd say no," She said, and let him see the grin that she was beginning to wear just for him. "But I'll make an exception for you."

They fell into a similar rhythm over the next few days. Emma brought actual groceries up to the house after that first morning, and made it a habit of making breakfast for the both of them. Killian protested every morning - _I'm a grown man, Swan, and you're my guest -_ but she told him that cleaning his crap off the table would be his contribution, and then she told him to stop being a baby and that she was going to cook whether he liked it or not.

Having the two of them working side by side in the weeks prior had put a large dent in Killian's service list so he managed an hour or two with Emma's car every afternoon, slowly working away at undoing what was apparently a very amateur conversion, that more times than not had him cursing under his breath at the parts and his tools and the nameless person who had owned the car before Emma. Never the car though - never a word crossed his lips that spoke against the car.

As routines went, theirs was peaceful and welcome and just days of comfortable conversation and jokes traded back and forth across the garage, and a small voice in Emma's mind started whispering about what it would be like if she never left? She would get her car back eventually, of course, but there was nobody waiting anywhere for her, nothing that said she had to take her car and drive it far and fast.

Part of her knew that she could stay, and that he would let her.

She dreamt about it one night, warm and comfortable in the room in the corner of his home. She dreamt that he stood in the driveway in front of the garage, proud and radiant in the afternoon sun as he told her to turn the car on. She was in the driver's seat and when she turned the key the engine caught immediately, and it sounded smooth and familiar and like freedom stretching out in front of her, but when he said _Drive_ she said _No_ and what stretched out in front of her then wasn't the open road but instead their life together, and dream-her was so happy that it swelled in her chest and woke real-her from a dead sleep.

She wished she had been smiling when she realized what had woken her, but she wasn't. Instead she was sitting straight up in bed and her breath was coming too fast and there was that familiar refrain of _run run run_ chasing through her veins. The image of joyous, sunlit Killian and Emma saying yes to a future that didn't terrify her drained from her mind and what replaced it was a mosaic of every time she had said _Yes_ that ended up being a _No_ \- family after family, friend after friend, and then Neal who she thought was going to be her forever, and then Walsh who she let convince her that what happened with Neal had just been a fluke and that _forever_ was something she could hope for.

All that, and here she was still dreaming of something that she knew she could never have.

Morning bled into the sky and she went downstairs with her head still a mess of _I could stay_ and _No you can't_. She knew Killian saw, too, because even though he was silent through breakfast she could feel him watching her with a careful, understanding gaze. Even when they went down to the garage and he was a whole bay away from her, she knew he could see the way her hands dragged as she worked, the way she had to check and recheck everything that wasn't muscle memory because her mind wasn't on her work.

 _I could stay._

 _No you can't._

The whole day was a haze of conflicting thoughts and barely-remembered repair slips and the weight of his gaze cutting over to her until sometime in the space between afternoon and evening he slammed a socket wrench down on the tool bench and came over to her side of the garage, taking the screwdriver from her hands and setting it down, and jerking his head towards the back lot.

"We're closing early today, Swan. Come on."

"I'm almost done and I said I'd have that car done by tomorrow."

"Then you've got tomorrow to finish it." He nudged her gently at the small of her back and she gave in even though part of her was screaming that this easy compromise and gently touching between them was exactly the reason she couldn't stay.

"Where are we going?"

"Field trip." He hit the switch for the garage doors with an open palm and didn't stop to make sure they shut, instead leading her to the corner of the lot, far from any of the cars lined up for service, and pulled a sheet off of a low riding car with a quick tug.

Emma had never been one for muscle cars - something about the rough edges and implied snarl of them too...deliberate - but this was something else. This was jet black with glints of chrome that looked like a scoundrel's smile, shining and unmarred by scratches or dust or bugs on the grille, low to the ground and waiting for someone to demand _show me what you can do_. It was coarse and it was rough but it was _gorgeous_.

"What is this?" She asked, even though she thought she already knew.

"You don't think I drive the truck everywhere, do you?" His smile said that he had planned for this little bit of ceremony, and that he was thrilled at her reaction. "This, Swan, is mine." He patted the roof and the gesture was pure affection. "1970 Pontiac GTO, perfectly restored."

"You did this?"

"You flatter me - this was done by a far better mechanic." He glanced down for a fraction of a second and there was something sad in his expression, but then it was gone and he was gesturing for her to hop in the passenger side as he swung easily into the driver's seat. The interior was no less pristine than the exterior and if it weren't for the way his hand curved against the steering wheel as if it were made for it, she would have thought he had never driven this car at all.

Emma could hear the faint spray of gravel behind them as he peeled from the lot, and the turn they took onto the road was toeing the line between thrilling and dangerous, but it pulled a smile from her lips that lasted even when they slowed to the speed limit on the road proper.

"I don't like to push my luck in the middle of the day, even if I _do_ know the sheriff." Killian said with a smirk.

"Are you going to tell me where we're going, then, if you're going to drive like an old man?"

"Hasn't anyone ever told you about surprises, Swan?"

"I don't like surprises."

"You'll like this one." He said, all fake bravado. She saw the apprehensive glance he darted at her, but he let their conversation lapse into silence as they continued down the road, all the way down the main street and around the corner, down a hill, and then they were in a parking lot with the ocean spread out in front of them.

She knew where they were headed, but she let him lead her down to the docks and to the slip on the end, to a small aluminum boat bobbing peacefully in the water.

"Behold the finest vessel to sail the seven seas." Killian said dramatically, gesturing to the boat with a flourish.

"That is...quite a vessel."

"You mock her, but you'll see." He offered her his hand and there was no other option than to take it and get in the boat, so she did, waiting while he undid the mooring ropes and hopped lightly in after her. Even though it was a small boat, it barely rocked as he landed which was either a testament to the boat itself or, more likely, the hours he had probably spend here.

She would have liked to help him as he fussed around the boat checking the fuel and the supplies in a box under the seat, and looking briefly at a compass before yanking the motor to life and navigating out of the marina, but she knew she would just get in the way so she sat on the small seat at the tip of the ship and tried to stay out of his way. He let her, sailing the boat quietly out into the harbour until even the hush of the waves against the shore had faded away.

"You don't have to answer," He said eventually, in a voice that was so soft she wouldn't have heard it if there was anything else to hear. "But you can't deny that something's been bothering you, Emma, and if I can help...I would very much like to."

"You brought me all the way out here just to say that?"

"No." He cut the motor then and let them drift gently as he leaned forwards to scrub a hand through his hair. "But whenever I have something on my mind, I prefer to confront it in a place that's less...busy. And I thought that you might like it as well."

"No, I do. I just..." She sighed and looked out over the water, and she couldn't deny that everything was so much easier out here where it was just her and everything she couldn't help but thinking. He knew that even before she did, and in this moment on the open water with him here giving her things she didn't know she needed, she almost forgot the reasons she had to leave in the first place.

Unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes. She was in a boat with a man who had definitely become her friend if not something more - her mind whispered _something more_ and she couldn't lie to herself and deny it - out on the water with the sun dipping lower in the sky, and she couldn't hold it together enough to let herself enjoy it.

"Emma, I didn't mean to say anything..."

"It's not you." She laughed a little, helplessly, and rubbed a hand over her face in frustration. "It's...you've done nothing but help me ever since I got here, Killian, from the repairs to letting me work them off to letting me stay in your _house..._ and I..." _I don't want it to end. "_ I ruin _everything_ , alright? I always have. And I'm going to ruin this too, and I can't let you get caught up in that."

"If anyone ever told you that you ruined things..." His eyes were dangerous, but she just waved him off.

"It's not anything anyone's ever had to _tell_ me - I've been bounced around the foster system, lost every friend I ever made, I have two failed relationships under my belt that I thought would last...and the only common denominator in that is me. So what do you think is going to happen here?" She gestured to the space between them, and the tears were coming hard and fast now but she didn't care. Whatever he thought of her he _had_ to know that Emma Swan was a person meant for leaving. "No matter what I feel or what you feel this can never last because it _can't_. Not with me."

"Do you want it to?" He asked quietly.

"It doesn't matter, Killian. It never has."

He was silent for a long moment, and she was just waiting for the sound of the motor to start back up and for him to turn them back to shore because he had to realize that this had been a huge mistake. Instead, the boat shifted slightly as he leaned closer, and then his thumb was tracing the curve of her cheek gently until she looked up at him.

"My parents haven't been in the picture in a long while," He said, and she could tell that the words surprised even him. "My father left when my brother and I were young - young enough that I don't remember much of him - and my mother passed a year shy of my seventeenth birthday. Liam - my brother - he raised me, practically by himself, and Gods know it wasn't easy on him. On either of us." He chanced a glance over at her and his eyes were stormy with the tale. "I always asked him why - why our family, why _us_ , why couldn't we have a life that was straightforward and made bloody _sense_ even half the time. Why did it seem like..."

"Like bad things only ever happened to you." She finished quietly. He nodded.

"Liam used to say _Smooth seas don't make a good sailor, brother,_ and I hated him for it. I would have rather been a poor sailor sailing on calm waters than an expert sailing in a stormy sea. But now...after losing him..." He stopped for a moment and she could tell that even though it had been years, there was still a piece of him missing that he didn't know if he would ever get back. "I've come to think that the world only gives us what it knows we can handle, to prepare us for the things we'll have to face later...and then pays us back tenfold for the things we've lost."

His words hung in the air a moment, the waves against the hull of the boat a soft hush, until she whispered, "Has it happened?"

"Not yet. But I believe it will someday." He glanced at her and then out over the water, and something in the searching of his gaze made her remember his words: _Do you want it to? "_ I have to."


	8. Chapter 8

_But I believe it will someday. I have to_.

God, the man couldn't just say something forgettable. After they had gotten back, Emma had managed to fall asleep without too much trouble, but she had woken just past five and by some miracle Killian wasn't already awake and working, so she was alone on his porch with nothing to think about but his words and what they could mean. Well, she didn't have to think to hard about what they could mean - she was on _his_ porch, living in _his_ house, legs drawn up onto _his_ chair, _his_ bathrobe wrapped around her knees, her hands curled around a cup of coffee from _his_ kitchen.

She didn't have to be a genius to realized how tangled their lives already were in one another's.

But still, for him to say he hadn't been paid back for the wrongs the world had done him and then _look at her_ the way he had in the moments following, like she was the answer to a question he didn't know how to ask, felt dangerous - like she could blink and suddenly find that lazy mornings on the porch and Killian Jones' bathrobe were her forever.

More dangerous was the fact that when she thought of that forever, something about it thrilled her.

The screen door creaked behind her and her gaze snapped up to Killian, slightly frantic as if he had caught her in the middle of something. He either didn't see or pretended to ignore it if he did, but simply offered her a grin that was as sleep-rumpled as the rest of him and sank down into the chair beside her with a cup of his own.

"Morning, Swan." He said. "I didn't hear you get up."

"I skipped the squeaky floorboard." She tapped his coffee mug with hers in greeting and let her gaze settle back on the grass rippling gently in the early breeze, a moving field stretching all the way to the road. She wanted him to bring up what he had said, and she was dreading it. She wanted him to ask her again _Do you want it to?_ but she didn't know how she would answer if he did.

He cleared his throat lightly and her heart leapt into hers.

"Would you mind picking up a car in town this morning?" He asked. "I want to finish up that Explorer I started yesterday and it's scheduled to be picked up before noon."

"Yeah, I'll go." She spared a glance at him to roll her eyes. "But honestly, you think you would have learned to schedule your work by now."

"I have you for that, now don't I?" His returning smile was mischievous and banished the last hints of sleep from his expression. She whacked him in the arm but let a small laugh escape at the exchange, and while she could still feel _Do you want it to?_ simmering in her chest, teasing him was familiar ground she was only too happy to get back to.

Killian gave her a crudely drawn map to the address in town where she was supposed to pick the car up and she left the garage to walk into town feeling strangely out of sorts as she did. She had gotten used to slipping on her (his) coveralls after breakfast and waking up properly over a second cup of coffee and whatever job was at the top of the service list that day, talking to Killian over the soft hum of the ever-present radio, and starting out the day any other way felt almost _wrong_.

Small as the town was, it only took her twenty minutes to reach the small apartment building a few blocks off the main street where a petite woman was out front and leaning against an old truck. She met Emma with a wide smile, and pulled her into a tight hug before Emma had a chance to ask if she was the one with the car that needed work.

"You must be Emma - Killian told me you were on your way." The woman pulled back and waved her phone in explanation. "I'm Mary Margaret - I think you've met my husband David already."

It took Emma a moment to remember the sheriff she and Killian had met at the accident site, and even when she did she couldn't reconcile the image she had of the man talking to Killian in a low, serious voice with the bubbly woman standing before her. "Yeah, briefly." She waited for the conversation to take off again, but Mary Margaret was just standing there _beaming_ at her, so Emma gestured to the truck. "There's something wrong with the truck, I take it?"

"Nothing serious - it just hit 200K and Killian said he'd look it over. David had to go to the station early and I have to teach a class in..." She glanced at her watch and made a face. "Half an hour, so he said he'd pick it up."

"I won't keep you, then. Do you have the keys?"

Even handing over the keys, Mary Margaret's smile was splitting her face, and then she said, "What are you doing for dinner tonight?"

"Excuse me?"

"David and I have dinner at 7, and you and Killian should come. It's been a while since he's been over." She nodded her head resolutely even though Emma hadn't said anything, then glanced back down at her watch. "I've got to go if I'm going to get to work on time. See you at 7!" And she was gone, rushing down the street with a wave over her shoulder. Emma just stared after her a moment, feeling like she had just come out the other side of a very perky hurricane. And now she and Killian had dinner plans.

He laughed when she told him - a full, hearty thing that surprised her for a fraction of a second when she heard it. Bent under the hood of the truck, he couldn't see the smile that spread across her face a moment later, so she let it. It wasn't that he didn't laugh, but this was something else - and she suspected that it was nearly as foreign to him as it was to her.

"I didn't really get a chance to tell her if we were coming either way, so I hope you didn't have plans." She told his back. That just prompted another round of laughter from him, and she was beginning to think he had hit his head while she was out because he was never this cheerful.

"Mary Margaret is not the type to give you the option of declining a dinner invitation." He took a deep breath and the face that popped out from beneath the hood was red with laughter. "I'm sure you gathered that, even from your short conversation."

"I kind of got the idea, yeah."

"I'll need to make something to bring before then, so would you mind getting a start on your car now?"

"I don't know a thing about injector conversions so I don't know what you expect." She said with a hint of regret.

"Figured as much, but that's not what I'm after." He pointed at her car and waited until she followed his finger to the slash of a dent in the middle of her bumper. "I was going to straighten that out for you, but if you wouldn't mind doing that, I can finish the last little bit on the Explorer."

"You sure there's nothing else in line before this?"

"Nothing that can't wait." He gestured at the car again, and offered her a smile like he knew exactly how little every other car mattered to her compared to the Bug.

"Thanks." She said with an answering grin.

"It deserves our attention as much as any other, Swan." He called after her as she went to pull on her coveralls and grab the tools from the back bench. "Though I did notice that your license plate's bent too - I can call up a contact and get you a new one, if you'd like."

"It's a Massachusetts plate, Killian. But thanks."

"We could get you a nice Maine one, if you wanted."

Now _that_ was a surprise. He said it with the light, teasing lilt she had gotten used to, but there was something honest behind it - something that said if she agreed, he might actually call someone and produce a license plate that would tell the world that _this_ was where she belonged. She forced a laugh instead, because of course he was kidding, and said, "I bet you say that to all the girls."

His laugh rang out alongside hers and when she glanced over at him he just shrugged dramatically with that same - though slightly less brilliant - smile frozen on his face. She wasn't sure if she was relieved that he didn't contradict her, or disappointed.

If she had kept her eyes on his a moment longer she would have seen on his lips the shape of the words that didn't carry across the garage as he said, the smile gone, "Not all of them."

Straightening her own bumper took less than an hour, but between David's truck and Killian's dwindling service list, it was six o'clock before Emma knew it and she realized quite suddenly, while she was wiping her dirty hands on the legs of her borrowed coveralls, that she had absolutely nothing dinner-worthy to wear, and also that she should probably bring something to the party. That state was exactly how Killian found her when he knocked lightly on her door frame at half past six: in a white tank top with his coveralls tied at her waist, hands clean but the rest of her still a mess, with the meagre selection of clothes from her duffel spread across the bed and looking even less acceptable than they had in her memory.

"I was going to ask if you're about ready to head out, Swan, but I'd wager you're not."

"We can't go." She said, well aware that this was an overreaction and that she was not the kind of person who stared at their own clothes for half an hour before declaring they had nothing to wear, but still slightly frantic because these were his friends and some visceral reaction to that fact made her _need_ them to like her. "I literally have nothing appropriate to wear and I should bring a bottle of wine or something, shouldn't I? And now it's six thirty and there is no _time_ for any of this."

"Granted, I _did_ tell you at five to leave that Buick for tomorrow, but _you're_ the one who insisted-"

"Now is really not the time." She held one hand up in his direction and scraped the other through her hair as she regarded her options for what had to br the hundredth time, an errant hope in her mind that somehow a dress or a skirt or even a remotely fancy _top_ would have appeared.

"Emma." Killian came to stand in front of her and grabbed both of her wrists, holding them close between the two of them as he looked at her with that very clear, very serious expression he sometimes had. "Breathe, love."

"You breathe." She said, but caught his gaze regardless and the steady blue of it calmed her a fraction, despite herself.

"I am." An eyebrow drifted up and he grinned, dropping her wrists and taking a step back. "What's wrong with what you usually wear?"

"This is _dinner_."

"We have dinner."

"This is not dinner on the porch with you. This is dinner with your friends, one of whom was wearing a _butterfly cardigan_ this morning, and it's just... _dinner_!"

"I didn't know Dave owned a butterfly cardigan." He said drily. "But as for you, wear what you normally wear. Dinner is usually casual and you look nice in anything."

"Oh yeah, I'm a real stunner?" She spread her arms wide and rolled her eyes, displaying the full complement of grease stains on her coveralls and rips at the bottom of her tank top from washing it over and over.

Killian's eyes travelled from her head to her feet, and his hand drifted to rub behind his ear, his gaze still on the ground as he said, "Be ready in ten, eh Swan? We'll stop in town if you want to pick something up."

"Thanks." She pulled a pair of jeans from the pile on the bed as Killian shuffled towards the door, regarding them critically but realizing as she did that even if dinner _wasn't_ casual she was out of options and out of time.

She ended up in the jeans and plain white sweater, combing out her hair and letting it hang loose in the soft curls that came from working all day in the heat of the garage. Killian was leaning up against the front door reading a section of the newspaper when she came down, and it was just jeans and a sweater but when he looked up, a look crossed his face like she was _everything_ , and the felt again as though she could look away for one moment and turn back to this life being _hers_.

"We're going to be late." She mumbled, opening the door and brushing past him out to the porch, but he caught her arm and she spun to face him, and for a moment the two of them just stared at each other in the soft light seeping onto the porch, and _forever_ was still a whisper in the cool evening air, and as his hand drifted up to cup her cheek gently she leaned into it without thinking. Then he took one step towards her and without him in the threshold, the door slammed shut and suddenly the entire world was dusk-blue and absolutely silent and _him_ with his hand on her face and his nose inches from hers, and then their foreheads pressed together and their breath swirling in the space between them, and for a formless moment she forgot that they were once two people.

His thumb rubbed a line across her cheekbone, and as he pulled that hand from her face he turned his head to look at it, and she turned with him until they were temple-to-temple and both looking at his thumb with a faint dark smudge across the whorl of his fingerprint that she knew was a streak of grease like she had on her face, somehow, after work. He cracked a grin and she could feel it manifest as his cheek shifted, still so close, so when he pulled away to smile at her with eyes that sparkled in the muted light, it felt inevitable.

"It's called a facecloth, Swan." He said, but his voice was uncertain behind the teasing lilt as though the world had shifted in those moments and he hadn't caught up yet. She couldn't really blame him for it. She hadn't caught up yet, either.

True to his word, Killian stopped at Granny's on the way to dinner, even though he told her that the mysterious dish that had already been sitting on the bench seat of David's truck when they got in could be from both of them. She'd had no part in it and didn't even know what it _was,_ so her pride insisted that she pick something up anyways. Even though she ordered the fasted thing on the menu - four orders of onion rings, to go - they ended up being five minutes late to dinner.

By the look on Mary Margaret's face when she opened the door, the five minutes were the farthest thing from a problem.

"Come in, come in." She bundled the two of them through the door, practically at the same time, and her smile was absolutely brilliant as she did. "I'm so glad you could come."

"For you, Maggie, anything." Killian dropped a casual kiss on her cheek as he shrugged off his jacket, handing the pot of his mysterious dish off to a hovering David at the same time, and Emma just watched it all from a step behind him with a dawning realization that this was familiar enough territory for all of them for this routine to be seamless.

"And Emma, lovely to see you again." Mary Margaret had Emma captured in a gentle hug soon after, shooing Killian into the kitchen after David, and somehow had Emma's red leather jacket off and onto the coat rack with Emma herself held at arm's length, before Emma had a chance to say hello. "And I love your sweater."

"Uh...thanks." For lack of a better idea, Emma held up her bag of onion rings and offered a smile. "I brought food."

"Beautiful! Dinner's ready to go so just let me get this on a plate and we'll eat."

Emma followed Mary Margaret into the kitchen, drifting over to stand beside Killian at the kitchen island. He handed her a glass of wine and grinned.

"She's quite something, isn't she?" He said, gesturing to the brunette. Then he eyes shifted to David, stirring something in Killian's pot on the stove. "Dave, you remember Emma."

"Of course. Hi, Emma." David nodded and waved his wooden spoon at her, dripping something white onto the counter.

"Honestly, mate. I _made_ that - endeavour not to waste it, would you?"

"You know my wife, Killian. Are you really scared we're going to run out of food?"

"If _she_ cooked, no. If _you_ made that godawful meatloaf again, I'm more scared that we'll run out of _edible_ food."

"One time." David said, turning back to the pot. "You make a meatloaf one time..."

"That was an abomination and you know it." Killian said.

"The two of you could go on all night." Mary Margaret said, walking between the two of them with a bowl of Emma's onion rings, on her way to the table. "But we're ready to eat so if you wouldn't mind..."

"Yes, Dave. Serve that up, will you, and stop making a scene."

"I could have you arrested, you know." David said, but Emma saw him smile as he pulled the pot off the stove.

They all sat down at a perfectly set table that held enough food for entire whole town. Between macaroni and cheese, a plate of grilled chicken, salad, green beans, the onion rings, and the pot of what looked like clam chowder that David set down, Emma wasn't sure that she would be able to walk out of this house under her own power.

"You made mac and cheese." Killian said, his expression pure and hungry as he eyed it.

"It's your favourite." Mary Margaret said simply, pushing the dish towards him. "And _you_ made clam chowder."

"It's tradition."

"Who made onion rings?" David cut in, and Emma could feel her face heat up as all eyes fell on the bowl.

"Emma brought those." Mary Margaret said, another winning smile shot down the table.

"Really, Swan?" Killian arched an eyebrow at her, his teasing smile already in place. "I slave over a hot stove to provide clam chowder for this family, and you bring onion rings?"

"Excuse me if I didn't have time to prepare a four course meal while running the whole shop while _you_ disappear into the kitchen for the entire afternoon." She shot back, her smile wide.

"One of us has to be the housewife, but if you'd prefer the job..."

"Housewife." Emma snorted. "Have you _seen_ your house?"

"She's right." David put in, shrugging at Killian's betrayed expression.

"Fine, if everyone's against me." Killian said, passing the mac and cheese to Emma dramatically.

"Did Killian's feelings get hurt?" David gave Killian a wicked grin as he slid the beans across the table to Mary Margaret, who was completely silent but regarding them all with the gentlest smile on her face.

"Sorry, Dave - I can't hear you, so taken am I with these beautiful onion rings Emma has so lovingly prepared for us. Hours and hours of preparation, tears shed as each onion is hand-cut with painstaking precision..." Killian broke into a laugh as Emma elbowed him hard in the side.

"You're _such_ an asshole." She muttered, then cut a glance over to Mary Margaret. "Sorry."

"Don't be." The brunette said, that strange happy smile still on her face. "This is nice."

"What, Killian's complex about his clam chowder?" David asked.

"No." Mary Margaret's hand came to rest on Killian's arm, and there was something meaningful about it that made the tips of Killian's ears redden. Even though her next words answered David's question, her voice was pitched low and her eyes were only on Killian as she said, "It's been too long since I've seen that smile."

The rest of dinner was much the same, casual banter traded back and forth across the table and dissolving quickly into easy conversation over desert about David and Killian's days in high school, Mary Margaret and David's wedding where Killian had pretended to lose the rings right up until an hour before the ceremony, and even a (very) vague story about Emma's life in Boston. By the time dessert was over and Mary Margaret wrapped both Killian and Emma in another hug on their way out the door, Emma felt like she, too, had known both Mary Margaret and David for years.

There was something...light in the air as the two of them walked down the main street on their way home, the truck having been left at the apartment. Emma hadn't laughed that much at a dinner in years, and now Mary Margaret and David felt like two more people she would miss when she left.

There was something different about Killian, too. His smile came so much more easily, like he didn't have to dig it out from somewhere to wear it, like it was ready and waiting because it knew he would need it often. He kept bumping her shoulder with his as they walked, and part of her attributed it to the three (four?) bottles of beer he had consumed over the course of the evening, but part of her also saw that this casual gesture came along with that easy smile, with the jokes that had fallen from his lips all evening, with the way his eyes looked like they were gazing into the sun even though the road was dark with the late hour.

It was so noticeable and so welcome that when it disappeared, she stopped dead in her tracks. And it was a good thing that she did, because if she hadn't he would have been several steps behind her because he, too, was frozen in the middle of the sidewalk, feet spread like he was ready to fight the world.

The world, or the man who said, "Mr. Jones. It's nice to see you out this evening." Mr. Gold nodded a greeting at Emma, but his eyes never left Killian's face.

"I'd like to say the same." Killian ground out, but left it at that.

"You never were the diplomat of the family." Gold's face changed and Emma wasn't sure what the expression was that he wore, but it was half shark and half a smile that was the farthest thing from pleasant. Then he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a sheaf of papers, letting them unfurl like an accordion as he held them out to Killian. "It's quite opportune that I ran into you, though. You see, I've just come from Sidney Glass's office."

Emma darted a glance at Killian, and his face pale and tight with both fear and fury.

"He's written me up a contract." Gold continued, watching Killian's eyes scan the topmost page. He saw, as Emma did, the moment Killian understood what he was reading because his eyes snapped up to Gold's face with such an expression in them that Emma rested a hand on Killian's forearm as a warning, all the while painfully aware that if he wanted to put his fist in that man's face, she couldn't stop him.

Frankly, she didn't know if she wanted to.

"I have a meeting with Mr. Johnson tomorrow." Gold said, and his smile was so smug Emma wanted to punch him herself. "He's agreed to go into business together."

They had been home for hours, but Emma was far from sleep. She couldn't stop seeing the look Gold had given Killian as he held out the contract, or the way Killian's face had turned from pure rage to just... _nothing_ the minute Gold had left. It didn't help that Killian had been in the house for little more than an hour after they had gotten home before heading to down to the garage, the front door slamming so forcefully behind him that she had felt it shake the house even from her room.

It had been hours since then, and she was surprised she hadn't worn a rut in the floor, walking back and forth between the bed and the window so often, the light in the garage calling her back again and again.

 _One more hour._ She told herself. _If he's not back in an hour, you can go down_.

Ten minutes and three trips to the window later, she was padding into the garage in bare feet, reasoning that time was running slow and that ten minutes was close to an hour, if you really needed it to be.

Only his legs were sticking out from the underside of her car, but she could tell that he wasn't working on it as much as he was just lying beneath it. She sat down on the ground next to it, the cold seeping through the flannel of her pajamas almost immediately, and leaned back against the front tire.

"You know how late it is, right?"

"I do." He said, but didn't move.

"You know the car's not going anywhere, right?"

"Isn't it?"

This was a strange turn, but there was nothing she could say that would make what they both knew any less true. "Killian..."

"Don't, Emma." She heard him sigh. "That was out of line. I know."

A few halfhearted noises came from underneath the car as he pretended to work in the silence that followed. She wanted to say something that would bring him back from...wherever he was that she couldn't seem to reach, but every turn she could see the conversation taking led somewhere she didn't want to go. Instead, she shifted until she was on her back against the cold concrete, so when she turned her head she could see the shadowed lines of his profile. He was looking at the undercarriage, but she could tell he wasn't really seeing it.

"Why are you always out here so late?" She asked quietly. "And don't say it's because there's too much to do, because I know that's not it."

"You're perceptive, Swan. I'll give you that much." She saw the whites of his eyes flash as his gaze tracked the line of the exhaust pipe, and he tapped it gently with one finger. "But you've heard enough of my story - you don't need to bother with the rest." His voice dipped low. "It doesn't much matter now, anyways."

"This is about the garage, isn't it." She didn't say it as a question because it wasn't one - not to either of them.

His head jerked in a nod and the crooked line of a smile cut over half of his mouth. It wasn't a pleasant expression. "When Gold runs this shop into the ground," He said, the words ragged. "What do you think will be the next thing to go?"

Suddenly his fingers still resting gently on the curve of the exhaust pipe turned into the ghost of his hand curved around the stair railing that first night she had spent in the house, and she knew why he was out here.

"The house." She said quietly. Even though he had put the words in her mouth, his breath still caught as she said them.

"Aye." His hand fell to rest on his stomach, fingers tapping a frantic rhythm there. "The house is mortgaged to the hilt to keep this place going, and that is not a hole I will ever be able to dig myself out of if I lose the business."

"You could get another job. Pay it off."

"In this town, where everyone knows how Gold feels about me? Gold, who is their landlord as much as he is mine?" Killian barked out a harsh laugh. "Not in this lifetime."

"You could work somewhere else. Earn enough to keep it."

"I've tried, love." He rubbed a hand over his face. "For a few months after Liam passed. I went to Portland and bartended and tried to lose myself in a city that had never known him - and I did. But the pieces of myself I lost..." His eyes got a faraway look then, and she knew the feeling he couldn't seem to describe.

"Killian..."

"I'm someone else here." He said. "A better someone. And out here...I know who I am here, in this garage, in this house." Even though it was tight and close in the space between his mouth and the car, his voice sounded so, so small.

She studied his profile a moment, and suddenly the late nights in the garage all made sense - she barely knew him, but she knew about needing a place to go to remind yourself of the person you were meant to be. Then she pulled her gaze from him and turned it up towards the ceiling of the garage, following a faint crack in the stark white of the plaster to where it met the corner where the back wall met the office, running a jagged line down the concrete block wall.

"I was left on the side of a road as a baby." She said, voice barely there because nobody in the world had ever heard this story. "And I had been in thirteen foster homes by the time I ran away at sixteen, and landed in jail at seventeen. And through all thirteen - some families I couldn't wait to leave, some families I begged to keep - I never got what you're describing. None of them were _home_." She started as his fingers drifted over to dance along the back of her hand, patient until she laced her fingers with his, and then his thumb was tracing a gentle circle on her skin as she continued.

"I don't know a lot about home, Killian." She said. "But it's something you carry with you, no matter if the physical place exists or not. It's the place, but it's also the memories you've made here, and the way it's built you even if you have to lay a new foundation somewhere else, eventually." She turned back towards him, and the blue of his eyes was lost in the dark but what she could see of his gaze was so, so gentle. "Even if the worst happens, even if Gold takes all this...you won't lose it. Not really."

His mouth twitched as his eyes shut heavily. He tugged her hand towards him until his lips were pressed against her knuckles, and she could feel her heartbeat pound hard against that spot in a sudden rush of heat, once, twice. Then his lips were moving and he was whispering against her skin, "This is the only place I can still feel them, Emma."

Her stomach dropped. She didn't know a thing about home or a thing about family, but she knew more than she was willing to admit about the particular brand of loneliness that seeped from his voice just then.

She had lived with that hollow wanting _need_ for so long, and she didn't want it for him.

"Okay." She said quietly, extracting her thumb from their clasped hands and stroking a short, soft line along the edge of his jaw. He didn't open his eyes and he didn't move, but she could feel the soft breath that he let out. "We'll figure out something."

She didn't know if they _could_ , but as he breathed a soft _Thank you_ against her palm, she vowed that they would.


	9. Chapter 9

She was sitting in the office, leaning back in his chair with her feet on the desk, flipping through a parts catalogue without really seeing it, when he stumbled in.

"There's coffee." She said in greeting, unnecessary because the scent of it was warm and heavy in the air, but it was better than waiting to see if he would mention the fact that he had woken up - just as she had several hours earlier - on the floor of the garage.

Besides that, even though it had been him she had fallen asleep talking to in a soft voice, even though it had been his hand she had found still anchored in hers when she woke up, the memory of this morning with the cold seeping through the floor but his skin warm against hers, his arm stretched out from beneath her car, was something she wanted to hold close to herself for just a bit longer.

"The coffee maker's-"

"Finicky. I know. I figured it out." She nodded her head over towards the machine and the half-full pot, turning her attention back to the catalogue to hide her smile. She realized now that she had never seen him in the morning before he'd had time to wake up even a little. It was slightly tragic, the way he shuffled around with eyes half-open, but more-than-slightly adorable, his edges softened by the early hour.

"What're you doing?"

"Ordering tires for the Ford out back, and trying to find that stupid radio-dvd-player thing he wants installed."

"'S too early for that." He said, sinking into the chair on the opposite side of the desk. Only one eye was open, as if even the soft light coming from the desk lamp was too much, and this time she couldn't hide her grin.

"That's hilarious, coming from you."

"I contain multitudes, love."

"Too early for flipping through a catalogue, but not too early for _multitudes_." She tossed the catalogue on the desk and arched an eyebrow in his direction. "You're something, you know that?"

"Mmmm." His eyes drifted shut and he was silent so long that she wondered if he had actually fallen back asleep. But then his eyes flashed open and they were almost bluer than they had been a moment before, and they were soft but insistent on her face, and he didn't look asleep anymore. "You stayed. Last night. Why?"

She felt a blush creep up her neck but just met his gaze and mumbled, "Well, I couldn't very well leave you there lying on the floor."

"You could have." He said. "But you didn't."

"I think I fell asleep first anyways so _you're_ the one who could have-"

"Emma." He reached across the desk to grab her hand, and her words trailed off as he did. It felt like it had last night, and she could still feel the ghost of his lips against her knuckles. "I'm trying to say thank you."

"I haven't done anything." She said quietly, and she could hear the waver in her own voice because this, somehow above everything else, made her chest feel tight. Nobody in her life had thanked her much, even for things she had tried hard to do, much less things that came so naturally she didn't even need to think about them.

"You've done more than I have words for." His voice was rough as he said it and as he did, his hand tightened on hers, and something in his eyes was _reverent_.

"Killian..." She looked at him helplessly, saying-without-saying that he was going somewhere she didn't know how to follow, and even though he offered her a gentle, understanding smile, she could see him pull back into himself a fraction as he realized what she meant.

"How about you and I go to Granny's for some breakfast, then? Would that be adequate thanks?"

An answering smile broke from her face, pure relief. "That would be great."

The morning was crisp but beautiful so when he suggested they walk into town, she agreed. Emma was still wearing her pajama bottoms and a hoodie that she knew had a stripe of grease up the back after her night on the floor, and he was in a t-shirt and a truly unfortunate pair of sweatpants that had maybe been grey, once, but were now too holes-and-dirt to tell. But something about the magic of this town and the gentle, early hour had them walking down the driveway regardless, even though the house - and a change of clothes - was only a hundred feet behind them.

"I should have asked before, but you're not boycotting Granny's, are you?" He asked casually, but the gaze that cut over to her was slightly troubled.

"I bought onion rings there _literally_ last night." She said. "And frankly, if our roles were reversed, I'd rather kick out a random stranger than have Gold breathing down my neck, too."

"She's not usually that kind of woman, for the record - she'd sooner fire a crossbow at someone threatening her than let them have their way, but..."

"The Diner's her home and her business, Killian. I get it." She drifted into him, nudging him with her shoulder, and he flashed her a grin.

"You're getting to know quite a lot about this town, Swan. And the people in it."

"Just a few of the people." She chanced a small smile at him, and if his face didn't just light up...

Then his smile dimmed a fraction and his eyes were suddenly everywhere but on her face.

"What?" She looked uncomfortable, like she wasn't meant to have seen the look on his face, almost _screaming_ that there were words behind that expression that he wasn't going to say. He chewed his lip a moment, then his gaze was back on her and the gravity of it was almost too much.

"What are we doing here, Emma? This?"

"I..." She was going to say _I don't know what you mean_ but that was a lie neither of them would believe, at this point. "I don't know."

"I'm not complaining, but..." He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "How honest do you want me to be about this?"

"Honest." She said in a small voice.

"I've not..." He laughed a bit, incredulously, like he was regretting this whole line of conversation but also like he was surprising himself with his own words. "I've not felt...this...for a long while, and I feel like I have to tell you that the last time ended...poorly. For me. And I'm not saying you feel the same way or-"

"Killian, I..." She let two fingers brush against the back of his hand to stop the words that were flowing faster from his mouth - so fast she knew he would lose track of them - and he grabbed onto her hand like a lifeline, and when he finally glanced up at her he looked terrified. "There are...probably things I should say, and if I were a different person in a different life..." She let out the same breathy laugh he had a moment ago. "But things like...this...never end well for me, either, and I'm meant to be alone, and..."

 _And we both know how this ends._

"I know, Emma. I know." He sighed, and she let her eyes drift shut for a long moment, his hand a gentle guide as they walked slowly. "I just..." She opened her eyes to look up at him, and he held their linked hands up between them helplessly.

It was selfish and more than she deserved to ask him for, and her voice was almost not-there as she said it, but still she whispered, "I like this."

"I like it too, love." He brought their linked hands up a few inches so he could press his lips to her knuckles for the second time in as many days.

"Then why does anything have to change?"

"It doesn't." He said, and though she cut her gaze to the shape of the town now only a few hundred feet away, she could feel the blue of his eyes deliberate and insistent studying her. She knew what he was thinking, because the same thoughts were running through her own head.

Things only had to change because she was making them.

Even so, he held her hand all the way to Granny's.

They spent nearly two hours tucked into a corner booth, Killian poking fun at her for her plate of waffles while he made the "healthy" choice of eggs and toast - which didn't stop him from trying to steal bites off her plate every other minute. Between endless cups of coffee and good conversation that never faltered and, more often than not, had their laughter filling the quiet diner, by the time they got back to the garage it was an hour past the time they were scheduled to open. She was well past the point of needing to ask him for something to do, and he trusted enough not to have to tell her, so with an unspoken agreement he disappeared into the office and she slid her coveralls over her pajamas, getting to work on a Ford that had been dropped off before they closed last night. It was an older model but so well maintained it looked almost brand new, so the tune-up was simple and practically mindless.

It left a lot of opportunity, when Killian came back into the garage bay, to watch him duck smoothly under the hood of her car, humming softly to the soft strains of the radio drifting out from the office. Her hands stilled as she looked, and her gaze tracked over the simple line of his body curved just so to reach into the depths of the car, the way his hand darted out every so often to switch a tool out for one on the rolling rack beside him, the sheer _ease_ of his posture that betrayed how comfortable he was. And beyond all that, he was so...competent. His hands were steady and deliberate as they moved beneath the hood, his soft grin betraying his pride in his work, and even though he was across the garage from her, something in the gentle way he handled the bright new pieces of the car that was _her_ as much as it was _hers_ felt strikingly similar to having her hand curled in his.

They worked in comfortable silence long into the afternoon, lunch a forgotten concept as Killian got deeper into his work on the Bug and as Emma let the Ford and a junky Buick dominate her time, until later that afternoon, from beneath the hood of an ancient Chevy K-Series, she asked,

"If you could have your dream car, what would it be?"

The question hadn't necessarily been nagging at her, but the more she saw the obvious care and even _love_ he had for cars that weren't his, the more she remembered the curve of his hand against the sleek roof of his GTO, the more she wondered what filled his dreams at night - whether he thought of outlandish futures when he was in here in the weak hours of the morning. And more than that, it was about knowing him. Even just this small detail.

"Anything?" He was silent a moment, and she could hear him tapping a finger against the metal of her car as he thought. "A Honda CR-V, probably - they're dependable, great lines, and I prefer a bit of space in a car. And I could tow something if I had to, if the truck broke down."

"Not like that." She paused a moment and stood up, arching her eyebrow so dramatically that he had to see it, even from across the garage - and if his wide smile was any indication, he did. "Like…if Gold had to give you every penny of the money he's bullied out of the people in this town, on top of paying them all back, and you could buy _anything_ , what would it be?"

"McLaren." He said in the next breath, and his whole face lit up as he did. "675lt. All black, with carbon side intakes."

"Jesus." She breathed. "Dream big, why don't you."

"You did say _anything_." He grinned. "Have you ever seen one?"

"No."

"I did. Once. We took a trip to New York, my brother and I, and it was parked along one of the side roads like it was just...normal." His laugh was incredulous but his face still shone with a wistful admiration of a car that fit a life neither of them could ever dream of having. "If you could have seen it, Swan - bright red, huge wheels, not a scratch on it, and it had these carbon fiber details...the most beautiful I've ever seen, absolutely perfect. And the lines..." He traced a sleek shape in the air with his hand, and there was something in his eyes that made her _want_ so completely and so suddenly she felt like she couldn't breathe.

"Sounds beautiful." She managed, and he just looked at her like she put both feet in her mouth.

"It was _flawless_ , Swan. Even the brake calipers..."

"You may want to rein it in before I have to mop a pool of drool off the floor." She said drily, recovering. He just gave her a look, that raw awe for a car he had seen once, years ago, still so plain.

"What about you, then? If you could have anything, what?"

His words caught her short - stupidly so, because of course he would ask her the same question in return - but she realized even as she opened her mouth to reply that she didn't have an answer. She had never courted grand dreams of anything - a home, a family, love...anything more than the little she already had was firmly out of the question, and dreaming just left her sad.

"I...that." She gestured lamely at her own car - her own car sitting on the jack, half apart, not even _working_.

"Of all the cars in the world? This is the one?" He rested a hand on it - the same hand that moments before had been tracing sleek supercar shapes in the air - and though he was looking at her with a touch of mirth, he also looked like something in him understood.

"That's..." There were words she could have said - something about it being vintage, about the history of it, about the spaciousness of the interior or the way it felt solid in a way no new cars ever did - but they weren't true words. Not for her. What was true for her was the way a road looked at night, stretching past the glow of her headlights; it was the sigh of relief when she saw the bright yellow of the paint and the faintly bulbous shape of the hood after a long day; it was the warm smell of leather and the whine of the engine when she pushed it and the back seat that was big enough for a person when they had nowhere else to go. It was the way the curve of the steering wheel made her feel like she could breathe even when her chest felt tight and the world felt too small. It was the way when she said _faster_ the car always said _yes_.

"It's all I've ever had." She said finally, quiet enough that she would have thought he hadn't heard her if he hadn't stilled and looked over at her like his heart was breaking and filling with something too real all at once. She couldn't look at him, turning instead back to the Chevy, as she murmured, "It's all I want."

The silence that followed was nearly too much, and though she kept her eyes absolutely fixed on the car before her, she could feel him still watching her. The way it felt like he was seeing more than she knew should have felt uncomfortable, but she knew that there wasn't anything he could learn about her now that he didn't, probably, already know.

"I'd better get to work then, hadn't I?" He said finally, and after another long, silent moment, she heard him turn back around.

The words he hadn't said were almost _louder_ than if he had screamed them, and all she could think of as the sounds of him working slowly filled the space back up was how fitting it was that the thing that meant most in the world to her had ended up in _this_ garage.

They closed an hour later than usual to compensate for the late start, and Emma made a hasty dinner afterwards - something that started as scraps of fish left over from his chowder but ended up as a very passable stir fry. It was late by the time they finished, and she could tell even from the long lulls in their conversation at the table that they were both feeling yesterday's long night. Still, Killian insisted on doing the dishes afterwards, even when she told him to leave them.

"Honestly, they're not going anywhere." She had said, and was awarded by a very self-satisfied smirk from him.

"Wasn't it you who told me that only heathens leave their dishes on the table?"

It had been her, that first morning when they had eaten pancakes among a sea of days-old dishes. Of course it would be tonight he would take it to heart, so after a beat she gave him a grudging nod and let him shoo her out of the kitchen.

She toyed with the idea of going out to the porch, but it was getting colder in the evenings - she could feel, already, tendrils of cool air seeping in around the old windows - and there was something about the faded plaid couch in the living room with its floral wallpaper and gentle curtains that felt...

Well, it felt like exactly what she needed, but that wasn't something she was prepared to let herself think.

Instead, she snagged the remote off of the coffee table as she sank onto the couch, flicking on the TV and cycling through the channels until she found an old movie. The volume was already low, the hum of voices blending easily into the hush of the evening wind outside and the faint sounds of Killian moving around in the kitchen. She had seen the movie before, more than once, so as Gene Kelly pranced around in the background she let her eyes wander over the walls and the solid, beautiful furniture. She had been here long enough, now, that the house felt familiar, but she couldn't help but catalogue the small details of this house whenever she got the chance. The dark wooden shelf tucked in the corner, the sheer white curtains on all the windows, the delicate china in a cabinet by the stairs...they seemed so unlike dirty sweatpants, grease-still-on-his-hands Killian, but she would still catch him, sometimes, running his fingers over the gentle curves of a teapot painted with birch trees, or letting the curtains flutter through his hands softly as he pulled them back to check the weather in the mornings, and in those moments she felt like these pieces that had no solid _purpose_ in his life that seemed geared towards function told her something about him that he might not have intended for her to see. Looking at those small details again now, she could see that they had been loved for a long time and she wondered, again, if it was he who had given it.

She let her mind wander between the movie and the gentle but undeniable presence of the house around her, the soft music of the voices and the wind and Killian all warm and close and comfortable, especially after the long night before. So it wasn't much of a shock that, when she felt something soft settle on her shoulders, she had to snap her eyes open to look at him - frankly, she was surprised she hadn't fallen asleep completely.

"You know I won't judge you for going to bed at 9, if you'd like." He said, though the twinkle in his eyes said differently.

"Just...thinking." She returned, shuffling over to give him a space to sit down between her feet drawn up beside her and the opposite arm of the couch.

"At this hour?"

"What did you say this morning? I contain multitudes."

"Touche." He flashed her that familiar half-smile and sank down beside her. As he settled into the cushions, she glanced at her shoulder to see what he had draped over her. It was his flannel bathrobe - the same one she was almost positive she had left on the hook in the upstairs bathroom yesterday morning.

"It's an old house with drafty windows." He said, his eyes tracking hers as she studied the worn plaid. "It gets cold."

"It is _yours,_ though. You should get to wear it, if anyone does."

"I'm alright." He cut his gaze over to the screen, but she didn't miss the way his cheeks coloured slightly. Then a sudden smile bloomed. "You're not honestly watching _Singing in the Rain_ , Swan?"

"I like it." She muttered.

"I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one, especially since the remote is all the way over there." He looked so mournfully at the other end of the couch where she had the remote balanced on the arm that she couldn't help but laugh at him.

"You're ridiculous, you know that?"

"Aye. But you love it." He just shrugged, and if he saw the way she froze for a moment at those words, he was kind enough not to mention it. Instead, he gathered her feet into his lap - casually, easily, like it was so familiar and such a non-issue that he didn't even have to think about it - and settled in for the rest of the movie.

Not that, between the weight of his hands warm on her feet and _you love it_ still in the air, she saw much of it.

She wasn't quite sure when she fell asleep, but when she woke up hours later, an infomercial was casting a pale light on the couch, and her feet were still in Killian's lap - Killian, who was fast asleep. She took a moment just to watch him, staying absolutely still as his chest rose and fell gently. There was a certain tightness to his expression, even now, but he looked...peaceful. And with everything stripped away - no soft humour on his face as he teased her from across the garage, no weary lines around his eyes when he came into the kitchen early in the morning, no echo of the past on every feature as he told her about his family - she could see something so young and so... _lost_ in the shape of his mouth and the way the arm that wasn't draped over her legs was angled protectively into his chest, close to his heart.

And it was then that she had to stop looking, because when her car was finished she needed to leave - for his sake, because she had ruined everything she had ever been a part of, and for hers, because she was dangerously close to hoping for something she knew could never happen.

She pulled her feet gently from his lap, and he stirred as she knew he would, eyes fluttering open and so hopelessly blue that she almost broke her rule about hoping for things.

"Hey." She whispered, flicking off the TV and standing in the sudden darkness.

"What time is it?"

"Late. Time for bed."

"I missed the end of the movie." He said, rubbing a hand over his face. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"It's been out for like fifty years - I'm sure you can catch the rest of it another time." Emma held out a hand, and she knew her smile was something like she might have put on for a tired child. "Come on."

"You go on." He scrubbed a hand through his hair this time, and she could see his eyes dart towards the door. "I wanted to finish a few things up in the shop before tomorrow."

"Killian..." Her smile fell from her face, and it wasn't just that he had been down there every night since she had been here, wasn't just that she could see his hollow eyes and the circles beneath them even in the dark, but it was that he had held her hand like a lifeline the night before, and the thought of him down there _without_ her... "No. It's late, and we _both_ know you're as tired as I am."

"I've had plenty of nights longer than this one, love. And it's only down the driveway."

"That's not the point." She grabbed his wrist and pulled him behind her towards the stairs - which he allowed despite dragging his feet - gesturing for him to head up in front of her and nudging him between his shoulder blades when he didn't. "It's late, and it's not just _this_ long night but a bunch of them, and night is for _sleeping_ , Killian. Not work."

"Sometimes it's not your choice, what night is for." He said quietly, but relented and started up the stairs without her having to poke him again. "I know you know, Emma. I've heard you awake at hours, according to you, you shouldn't be."

"That's..." _Different_ , she wanted to say. But it wasn't. It was nightmares and memories and too many nights in unfamiliar houses to sleep comfortably, even in a house that felt like home. "We're not talking about me."

"All I'm saying," He said, reaching the second floor and pausing in the doorway of his room, steps from their stairway. "Is that you and I, we're cut from the same cloth."

It struck her how simple those words were but how deep they ran - how much he knew her from their short time together, and how much of it was because he already knew himself.

"I know." She said after a beat, and a soft smile flickered on his face.

"Goodnight, then." His hand drifted up to rub behind his ear as he leaned against the door frame. "I really did enjoy the movie tonight, love. Even if I didn't get to see the whole thing."

"Me too." Emma wrapped her arms around herself, pulling his bathrobe tighter, and she would have turned towards her own room if he hadn't looked so restless, still, shifting from foot to foot even in his deliberately casual pose.

It was almost painfully clear that the moment she left, he was going to be right back downstairs and out the door.

"Get in the bed." She said with a sigh, pointing into the room.

"What?"

"You. In the bed."

"Swan, really."

"Tell me you're not going to go down to the garage the minute I go to bed."

"I'm not..."

"Look me in the eye," She said, her tone heavy and firm. "and promise me."

"I..." His gaze drifted up and caught hers, and he looked so resolute that for a moment she thought that he was going to lie to her and tell her he wouldn't go. But after a long, silent moment, he sighed deeply and pulled a hand through his mess of hair. "Emma...you don't know what it's like."

"You'd be surprised." She stepped closer, forcing him back and into the room. He let her, backing up slowly until his knees hit the corner of the mattress, then sinking down to sit on the edge of the bed. She waited, looking at him expectantly until, with a sigh, he lay down on his back and settled his head on the pillow.

"Is this satisfactory?"

"As long as you promise that when I go, you'll stay here. All night."

The air was heavy in the silence that followed, and it should have been such an easy promise to make, but what she could see of his expression looked so conflicted, words upon words flashing behind his eyes until he said, finally, "That is not a promise I think I can make."

It was so bare and honest that for a moment she felt like she couldn't breathe, so her voice was not all there when she whispered, "Promise me you'll try."

"Alright." He said, voice as low as hers. "I'll try."

She should have left then, let the promise fill the room and give him a chance to fall asleep before he so much as thought of breaking it, but instead she lingered in the doorframe. "You know where I'll be." She said, and she really should have left but he had taken a breath that he hadn't let out, and there was something in his expression that was all unsaid words and moments still hanging between them...

"Would you stay?" He asked quietly, his breath rushing out all at once.

She just stared, and the words on her lips were both yes and no.

"Not…forever." He continued, voice slightly panicked because the look on her face was probably something like a door slamming in his, and he waved his hand in front of him as if to erase what his words could have meant. "Just…one night, Emma."

"Killian..."

"I know I'm not...this isn't..." He closed his eyes tight and a muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched it tight.

"Killian." The almost...loathing in that expression propelled her over, and she perched on the corner of the mattress until he opened his eyes to look up at her. "It's not you. It's just..." She laughed a little, helplessly, and raked a hand through her hair. "What you're asking for...I don't...I've never been _good_ at this. Any of it. And I can't..." She looked at him and she hoped he saw in her eyes the long hours she had spend thinking of a way this could play out that wouldn't end up breaking both of them. "We both know how this has to end."

His breath came out in a heavy rush, his teeth cutting into his lip for a fraction of a second, and then he was up on his elbows and even though he hadn't moved much he suddenly seemed so much closer.

"You know the broken window on the front of the house?"

She nodded once, remembering the errant conversation they had had the first night she stayed, something about a storm and the wind and the repairs he hadn't gotten around to. She had never been in that room, but she saw the gaping hole of the empty window frame every night when she walked up from the garage.

"There was a blizzard last winter and if I had left the house that night I would have gotten lost, and I knew it. So I stayed here, all night, and you can not imagine how quiet it gets when there is nobody around and the power's out." He cracked that half-smile and she knew he meant it to lighten the mood, but his voice was too rough and his eyes were too hollow for it to do anything other than break her heart. "Everything in this house is my family. Everything is something that was _theirs_ and _ours.._ but now it's all just everything I've lost..." He lifted his left hand and placed it in her lap, and after a moment she cradled it in both of hers and brought it close to her face so she could see, in the faint light, the faint lacework of silver scars across his knuckles. "I put my fist through it because I cannot be here for that long and not..." He blinked once, long and hard, and she could see him putting words together in his mind. "I made myself a deal that I wouldn't spend a full night in this house until I was sure I wouldn't do the same thing again, somewhere else, and wreck more of the only things that are left of them, and what you're asking me to promise you..." His eyes flashed open and the look in them when they locked with hers again was a bare plea. "I can't do it alone, Emma. I'm asking you not to make me. That's all."

"Okay." She whispered, because what else was there to say? It wasn't even his story - it was Killian facing Gold with her at his elbow, her maneuvering the crooked exhaust pipe while he fastened it in place, his careful prodding beneath the hood of a service car with her right beside him...it was how undeniable it was, now, that they were better as a team.

He gave her a gentle smile that was a more honest thanks than words ever could have been, and shuffled over to create a space for her beside him. It was a small bed and the scent of him overwhelmed her as she lay down, flipping onto her back on top of the covers to mirror his position. It wasn't as cold up here, a towel shoved at the base of the window to keep the draft at bay and him warm and close next to her. She tried to tell herself this was no different than laying next to him on the garage floor, but she knew it was a lie.

"You promise to stay here tonight?" She murmured, the words almost unnecessary because this close, she felt like he could pick her thoughts from her head if he wanted to. She laced her fingers with his, squeezing a gentle encouragement, and the shaky breath he let out next to her told her that he didn't miss how much this felt like their soft exchange in the garage last night.

He squeezed her hand lightly in return, and his voice was a breath when he said, "If you will."


	10. Chapter 10

Waking the next morning was something like coming to shore – sleep pulling Emma back, clinging to her, dripping from her until she wasn't quite sure why she was fighting it so hard in the first place.

Then someone shifted beside her, and _awake_ suddenly wasn't a problem.

It always took her a moment to orient herself in the mornings, which she used as an excuse for why she hadn't immediately noticed Killian's arm warm and heavy where it was draped over her stomach, or the way her feet were wedged between his calves and the mattress to chase the small sliver of warmth in the cool morning.

Or the way she was so comfortable in that position that she knew she had been there a while.

Before she could think too much about it, she drew a foot gently out from under his leg, but he stirred beside her before she had moved more than an inch, his arm tightening around her and drawing her closer, and she froze. It was a tense moment as she waited for him to say something about her still being in his bed, or to realize what he was doing any let her go, but when he didn't move any more, she shifted again towards the edge of the bed. This time he moved with her and she could tell from the clumsy way he slid across the mattress that he was still nearly asleep.

"Don't." He mumbled, his face finding the back of her neck. "Too early."

She stilled and he sighed deeply, his breath warm and heavy and the rush of air a happy sound in the quiet room, but he didn't pull away. Almost unbidden, her fingers danced softly against the back of his hand where it curled at her waist, barely touching him at all, and there was a thrill to it – to the warmth of that hand and the sleep-heavy weight of his arm around her and his chest at her back. She ghosted the tips of her fingers across the ridge of his knuckles, but before they could make the full journey he twisted his hand to twine their fingers together.

She could feel his lips move against her skin as he breathed, " _Stop._ " And she could tell he was nowhere close to meaning it.

"It's 7:30." She whispered, and she knew she should be pulling away or there should be at least a hint of reservation in her voice, but all she could hear in her words was a faint regret because as much as the clock on his bedside table was flashing a reminder in harsh red numbers – a reminder that she should have been out of this bed and several rooms away long ago – all she wanted was to stay. "We can't open late two days in a row."

"We could." He grumbled, but as he shifted she could tell that he was awake.

Then he somehow pulled his hand from hers and was sitting straight up in bed and a foot away from her, all of it so fast that she was still lying on her side, twisted to accommodate the shape of a phantom body against hers. She only had a moment for a bitter resignation to start to edge its way in – _of course he would stop once he realized –_ but his voice, brittle and wild, interrupted.

"Gods, I'm sorry." He said, raking a hand through his hair and using the other the gesture between them. She was only half paying attention because as she sat up to face him she could very acutely feel the cool air against the back of her neck, tracing the shape of the word he had whispered against her skin. "Emma, I really didn't…I was asleep and when I asked you to stay I didn't mean for this…"

"Hey." She stilled the hand he was waving between them, resting two gentle fingers against the back of it, and his blue eyes were frantic as she caught his gaze with hers. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't mean to…" He dropped his other hand from his head to gesture between them again, and offered her a helpless grin laced with the panic that was still in his eyes. "Intrude."

 _What?_

It took Emma a moment to catch up, to fill in the hanging ends of his earlier sentences not with the inevitabilities that her mind spun for her – _Emma, I really didn't want this. I didn't mean for this to happen. I think you'd better go. –_ but what suddenly struck her as the truth: she had drawn a line between them, and he was trying very hard not to cross it.

"Killian…" She dropped his hand and combed her fingers through his hair, smoothing down the wild tangle of it while she brought her other hand up to cup his cheek. He tracked the movement with his eyes, then met her gaze again, his expression helpless and confused. She was sure he saw in her eyes the mess of words she was trying to put together. They had somehow gotten to this place without her knowing – this place where she woke with his arm warm and _right_ around her, where she held his face in her hands and he let her, where there were too many words for her to be able to speak them all – and even though there was still a constant fear pressing at her chest, and even though her veins thrummed with _run_ , and even though there was the ever-nearer inevitable end to all of this creeping up on them both… "I'm the one who stayed."

"All night." Something in his eyes shifted to a barely-concealed incredulity, but she only got to register the look for a moment before he tipped his forehead against hers, his hand coming up to rest on the back of her neck, and the heat of his skin reminded her so much of the way he had pressed his face to that very same spot that she had to close her eyes a moment because this was such a dangerous thing to want. "Do you know how long it's been…" He started, but cut himself off as his voice grew thick and heavy with the weeks and months and years behind those words.

"You don't have to –" she started.

"I do, Emma." He whispered, voice rough and bare. But he didn't have to say anything – it wasn't her trying to spare him that made her say it. There were no words that would speak more truth than the sound of his voice as he tried to put together a sentiment that couldn't be spoken, or the way his hand trembled slightly where it held her.

"I already know." She breathed. He shifted slightly then, leaning back slightly, and she only had time for her eyes to open a fraction – enough to catch the edge of his gentle smile and a flash of his too-glassy blue eyes – before he was leaning back into her, closer, and his lips were on hers.

She hadn't been expecting it so she fell into him slightly, the leading edge of the kiss deep and insistent and almost rough, but he put a hand on her shoulder to steady her and the solid weight of his other hand grounded her as it slid from her neck to card through her hair, and then it wasn't so much about the fact of him kissing her as it was about him still trying to tell her something even though his words weren't enough. His lips were a gentle brush against hers, soft and whisperweight and somehow honest, and the rose-gold light of the early morning painted the backs of her eyelids, and even if she hadn't already known the words he couldn't seem to say, in that moment they were never clearer.

—-

Something shifted between them that morning, and it carried from the gentle cocoon of the house down to the garage. Conversation still bloomed between them as they worked in their respective bays, the soft strains of the radio filling in the gaps when one or both of them was concentrating and silent, but she caught him more times than she could count just looking at her with that same slightly incredulous expression and that same soft smile she had caught the corner of earlier. And she knew he caught her, once or twice, studying his hands as they coaxed a new air filter into place on a sturdy Chevy or the way he bit his lip as he tried to thread a small nut onto a bolt without losing it in the bowels of the engine block. It was the same garage it had always been, but today it felt like its own little world with just the two of them in it.

Throughout the course of the day their separate work on either side of the garage slowly bled into Killian working on Emma's car while Emma herself hovered behind him to watch him install the new fuel injector. Somehow, though, late in the day she found herself pressed against his chest again with his arms wrapped around her, his hands guiding hers as they finished the one-person installation as a unit.

They were still standing there together, admiring their work while he explained the next steps in a low voice, when a set of steps fell on the concrete floor.

Killian turned to face the customer first, and before Emma saw the man standing in the open doorway she fire burst to life in Killian's eyes as his whole expression slammed shut.

She felt her features shift to a similar expression when her eyes adjusted to the late afternoon sun shining through the doors and she could make out Marcus Johnson standing before them.

"You can go." She said, resting a hand on Killian's forearm as she stepped in front of him. "Right now."

"I suppose I deserve that." Johnson said, raising his hand in what could have been either a half-wave or an attempt to hold of an attack. "But I wanted to tell you–"

"We've already heard." Killian said. His voice was strung tight and it sounded like a violent promise, but he stayed a step behind Emma and didn't shake off her hand.

"Tell me what you've heard and I'll tell you if you're right."

"How about," Emma cut in, her voice pure venom. "You turn around and go back to your shop while it's still an honest business."

"Ah." Johnson pulled off his hat and scrubbed a hand through his hair, a strange twist of a smile on his face. "I know what you heard."

"Of course you do." She said. Killian's hand clapped down on top of hers then, anchoring it to his forearm, and whether it was to keep himself from doing something rash or to keep _her_ from surging forward, she didn't know.

"I think it would be best if you left." Killian said. His voice was icily calm now, and she couldn't look at him because she knew the intensity she would see in his eyes would have her across the garage with a fist in the other man's face, Killian's hand on her arm or not. "I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty of each other soon enough."

"I'd like to explain something for a moment, if I may." Johnson said instead, taking a few steps towards them. Even though he was crushing the bill of his hat in his hands, he didn't falter even though Emma knew neither she nor Killian was wearing the most welcoming of expressions.

"How about you start with why you agreed to come into this town at all when we both know you're doing fine with the shop you have now." Emma said. She could hear the snarl in her own voice and Killian's hand tightened on hers as he heard it too. "And for what? Just to ruin this place?" She ripped her hand out from underneath Killian's and took two steps closer to Johnson. She pitched her voice low and the space around her narrowed to the few feet between her and him. "You have no idea what it means. To him." She cut her eyes to the side even though Killian, still feet behind her, was nowhere near in her field of vision. Then she looked back at Johnson and the intensity she could feel in her own expression almost scared her. "To _me_. And what now? Are you going to rub it in? Is that it?"

"I'd…" He swallowed once, darting a glance up at Killian and then back at her. "When I started out – when _we_ did, my wife and I…we had nothing. Less than this. The garage attached to our house and our driveway. That's how we started." He turned slightly to look down the gravel drive and to the road, and a smile crept over half his face. "If we hadn't had the loyalty of our friends and neighbours, we wouldn't have made it a year, and now we're in a place where it makes sense to grow."

Emma felt her gaze heat up and she heard Killian take two steps forward until he was right behind her, his hand finding the small of her back to steady either her or himself or both of them. Johnson must have seen the look in her eyes too, and she didn't know how he could keep talking about his opportunities when it was his presence that was robbing Killian of the same thing.

"When you and I worked together that afternoon," He continued, nodding to Emma – she remembered the few hours he had spend here helping her with the finicky air conditioner, and regretted them instantly. "I remember thinking that it was exactly the same feeling as being in my garage right at the start, making it all work because I worked hard and because I loved it, not because it was about the money or the size of the shop." His smile spread over the other half of his face, and something in Emma's chest shifted despite herself. Right from the start, all he had ever been was proud of what he had built.

"The two of you…" Johnson said, that proud smile washing over Emma and Killian. "If anybody will make it work in this town, you'll be it." He slapped his hat back on his head and scuffed his foot along the ground, glancing down at the small arc he had created in the grit. Then he glanced back up at the two of them, and Emma knew he didn't miss the way Killian's hand was still flush against her back. "I haven't signed anything." Johnson said. "And I'm not going to."

"What?" Killian's voice was slightly strangled, and when Emma turned to glance up at him she saw a face raw with cautious hope.

"Mr. Gold and I parted ways." Johnson said, and his grin was slightly cockier now. "It seems as though we differed slightly in the way we respect our fellow men." He held out a hand, and Killian shook it with that same look on his face. Emma gave him a moment to say something else, but when it became apparent that he _couldn't_ , she gave Marcus Johnson her most grateful smile.

"Thank you." She said, her voice ringing with it. "You don't know…"

"I think I do." Johnson interrupted, and the way his eyes lingered on the space between her and Killian – or the space that _wasn't_ there – felt significant. He nodded once at them, shoved his hands in his pockets, and turned back towards the door. "Good luck."

"Thank you." Emma repeated, but it was a breath of a word and he had no dream of hearing it. She and Killian just stood there together, frozen in the centre of the garage as Johnson swung into the driver's seat of his truck and backed down to the road, waving at them both one last time before putting it in gear and heading back towards town.

They were silent for another beat before Killian let out a loud whoop and pulled her against him, not giving her a chance to turn around and face him before burying her face in her hair and letting out a breathless, incredulous laugh.

"What just happened?" Emma said, clutching the arms around her with both hands because she needed to hold him or dance around the garage or scream or _do something_.

"I don't know." Killian straightened and let her go, spinning her around by her shoulders so she was facing him, so she could see his smile stretching across his face and his eyes dancing with relief and elation and the sheer lightweight glee of a dream coming true. Then he was pulling her to his chest again and letting out the same laugh, and she snaked her arms up and around his back to clutch at his shoulders and hold him impossibly closer, and then she was laughing too because even though this morning had been perfect, a weight had been lifted and this was more than she ever could have hoped for. Knowing that this place was safe, that the tools would forever have a place in their mess against the back wall, that the finicky coffee machine would get to live out its days in the dusty office, that the house on the hill with its broken window would get to stay there with him inside as long as he wanted it, that he would have somewhere to go the nights he couldn't sleep…

She hadn't realized that the looming loss of this place had punched a hole in her chest until it was no longer there.

"Dinner." He said, pulling back and holding her at arm's length, smiling down at her with that impossible smile. "We've got to celebrate. Let's go to dinner."

"We always have dinner."

"Not here. Italian. There's a place by the river. We've got to go. I'm paying." He pushed a hand through his hair and laughed again, quieter this time. "I've still got the shop. I can pay."

"Okay." She didn't stop to think what it meant. All she saw was the smile on his face, and all she could feel was the answering gleam of her own, and if anything warranted a celebration, it was this.

"Let's go now. Let's go right now."

"Hold on." Emma's laugh this time wasn't at the relief of the situation, but at the sheer goofiness of this floppy-with-happiness Killian. "I need to run to the grocery store before it closes, and you're still wearing work clothes."

"I don't care." He did a little hop-step across the floor and into the office, and the radio was suddenly blaring, filling the garage with a clear, summery guitar rif as he returned, tossing something at her. "Here. You be quick, and I'll get changed, then we'll go."

"I'm not driving the truck six blocks to the store."

"Then don't take the truck." There was a gleam in his eye and he looked down at her hand meaningfully. When she opened it to actually look at what he had thrown her, her smile softened into a private grin. It wasn't a truck key in her hand – it was the simple, utilitarian key for the GTO.

"You're not serious."

"Be quick." Was all he said, winking at her before ducking under the hood of her car. "I'm hungry."

—-

She thought about refusing his offer for a fraction of a second as she stood before the black car squatting low and rough behind the shop. She thought about it, then she remembered the raw sound of the engine on their short trip to the harbour that night almost-forever ago, and she stopped thinking about it and slung herself into the driver's seat.

The car responded with a snarl when she turned the key, and if it had been exhilarating being in the passenger seat of this car, it was nothing compared to feeling it shudder beneath her feet as she let it idle, adjusting the mirrors slowly to draw out the anticipation. When she finished, it was slow torture to ease down the driveway and onto the road, to feel the raw potential of the car beneath her and not go screaming down the road for the sheer fun of it.

She saw Killian watching her from the doorway, and she could have sworn the smirk on his face was because he knew what she was thinking.

The drive to the store was short, but in the three minutes and six blocks it too her to get there, she fell hard for the GTO. It was coarse and loud and spit heat out onto the tops of her feet as the engine snarled, but it was eager and responsive and demanding she ask it for more so it could answer tenfold.

She didn't want to park it, but she did.

She only needed a few things so the trip to the grocery store was short, and despite a slightly longer trip to one of the other stores on the main street, she still got back to the car with plenty of time to get in trouble with it before dinner. As she strapped herself in, she silently cursed Killian because he had to have known what he was doing when he gave her the keys.

She wondered if he would know if she took a slightly longer trip back home.

She wondered if he would care?

She heard his voice say _We need to celebrate_ a moment before he threw her the keys.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she was pulling out of the parking lot and turning right, not left – towards the opposite end of main street and away from the house. She crawled along main street, overcompensating for the rush of speed she could feel in her veins, for his voice saying _Be quick_ running through her mind on repeat, until she was a block away from the very last building on main street.

She asked the car for more, then, and it didn't hesitate.

Her car built her excitement as it reached for speed, as it climbed through the gears in a steady line, her anticipation growing and growing until it met her at three- or four-thousand RPM and they tore down the road together.

The GTO didn't give her time to anticipate – it was already where she wanted it to be before she even asked. Objectively she knew it built to its speed too, but it felt like the space of a breath before she was pressed into the seat by the force of it. She couldn't help the smile that spread across her face as she flew down the road, her mind scrambling to trace her route on a mental map as she took a corner too fast and found herself on a straight stretch of road bordered by empty fields. It sang with possibility and nothing about this car said _no_ or _I can't_ or _you shouldn't_.

She screamed down the bare length of it, the feel of the road coming through the steering wheel and feeding straight into her hands, her arms, her everything. There was something about it that felt invincible and she suddenly thought of another similar drive in an entirely different car and Killian's hand on her knee holding her steady.

She knew even before she took the next turn how the back end of the car would swing around at this speed, knew how she would have to correct it to keep going without stopping, knew where to slide the gear shift to get the one she needed on the first try. Ten minutes of driving, and _oh_ did she know this car.

The fields stretched on in infinite streaks on either side of the car, lush and green then tall and yellow and finally the soft gold of the dry grasses that led home. This fast, it was only moments before she saw the shape of the house on the hill, then the garage squat and expectant and waiting. She cut her speed in half, albeit reluctantly, and wondered if he would notice that she had completely avoided the main streets on her way back.

She parked the car behind the shop, the doors already closed and the lights already off, and by the time she walked up the hill to the house her heart had stopped beating quite so fast. He was at the kitchen counter when she walked in, scrubbing grease off his hands, and when he turned to face her he smiled a smile that said he knew _exactly_ where she had been.

"It's something, isn't it?" He asked, and _of course_ it had been intentional. She was speechless for a moment because she hadn't even been thinking about the stretch of open roads or the rumble of a car beneath her, but he had given it to her anyways.

"Yeah." She said finally. "It really is."

—-

It only took her half an hour to get ready for dinner, but he was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs when she came down anyways. He had the TV on, watching it absently as he stood, so she saw him before he saw her, and it was probably a good thing she did. Yes the man could pull off dirty sweatpants and greasy coveralls and those jeans of his with the holes in the knees, but this…this was something else entirely. _This_ was a pair of dark jeans that had never seen the inside of the garage, a suit jacket that looked like it had been made for him, and a red shirt that was making her _think things_ despite herself. He had left a few buttons open at the top and his hair was an intentionally unintentional mess, and it struck her suddenly that he had asked her to _dinner_.

All things considered, she was glad she had made that extra stop after the grocery store.

She wasn't paying attention so she hit the squeaky step at the bottom, and his eyes snapped over to her as if the TV had never been on.

Then his eyes were _on her_ and she didn't know if he could have looked away.

"Swan, you look…"

"So do you." She said, flashing him a soft smile.

"I thought you didn't have any _dinner_ clothes." He held out his hand and she laced her fingers with his, but he held her at arm's length. Considering he usually saw her in pajamas or coveralls that were technically his, she supposed she couldn't blame him for his reaction to the dress. It was tight, sleeveless, and almost the same red as his shirt, and with her hair down and in loose waves she felt like a completely different person.

"I didn't." She led the way out the door, tugging her behind him, but just as the porch door slammed he pulled her towards her until she was in his arms, his face tilted down to hers, and it felt so familiar and so _right_ that for a moment she forgot how to breathe.

"You had grease on your face last time." He said, his soft smile saying that he was remembering the same moment. "I'd better check."

"You'd better." Her voice was nearly a whisper, and as he leaned in she met him, erasing any chance of this being another almost-kiss. She had half-expected it to be hungry and _needing_ given that she was in this dress and he looked like _that_ , but it was the same soft, already understood, gentle thing that seemed to always exist between them, and though it was short before he pulled back with a smile and tugged her down the drive and to the car, it left her feeling _full_ in a way she hadn't in a long time.

—-

The restaurant he took her to was nestled at the edge of the water, the back wall made entirely of windows that let the entire sunset into the room as they ate. It was Tuesday so the restaurant was quiet and nearly empty, so when he laced his fingers with hers on the table halfway through their appetizers it was a private moment even though their table in front of the window was open to the entire room.

"I love Granny but you cannot beat this spaghetti and meatballs." Killian said at the end of the meal, gesturing to his empty bowl.

"You say that, but you didn't have the ravioli." Emma propped her chin in her hand, blinking slowly at him over the table with a soft smile. The sun had long since set and in the soft candle light, with a stomach full of ravioli and her hand still nestled in Killian's, there was very little Emma would have traded for this moment.

"I've had it before, love. I know."

"Do you? Because this was _good_ – I think it's possibly the best ravioli ever made."

"If you had left one, I'd be able to tell you."

"Good try." She laughed. "Maybe next time you'll be quicker with your fork."

"Next time?"

"Yeah, I–" She realized then what she had said, and she cursed herself for the hopeful look on his face. "Killian, I…"

"I'll say this once." He said, his thumb rubbing a circle on the back of her hand, his eyes earnest on her face. "And only because it's come up, but Emma…" He glanced down and then back up. "If you…I want – need – you to know that if you wanted to try this…if you wanted to stay…"

"Killian, I can't." She whispered, just as he continued,

"I'd love to have you."

His thumb stilled its movements and they were absolutely silent as they stared at one another across the table, Emma pleading with her eyes alone that he see this the way it really was – that this was the way it had to be because if she stayed they would lose whatever this was between them and she wouldn't survive that kind of loss.

He didn't look like he was trying to say anything – he had said his piece, and now he just looked…

Not empty, but close.

The drive home wasn't awkward, but it was quiet in a way things never were between them – not comfortable quiet, not gentle quiet, but the quiet of words that needed to be said but weren't.

He followed her upstairs when they got home, shedding his jacket and tossing it into his room while he lingered in the hall. She leaned in her own doorway facing him, and there was something in his eyes that said he wasn't going to spend a full night in this house if he had to do it alone.

She had ruined dinner, but she didn't have to ruin this.

"Killian?" She said softly, waiting until his eyes met hers before offering him a gentle smile and holding her hand out between them. "Stay."

—-

All was forgotten the next day, Emma waking with her body pressed against Killian's back and her arms around him, and the day in the garage was quiet and luxurious without the threat of losing it all hanging over their heads. As it flowed gently into evening, Emma left Killian to close the doors while she went up to the house to make dinner, but she had been there maybe twenty minutes and was in the middle of defrosting a hunk of frozen peas in the sink when Killian's head popped through the door, a strange, almost sad twist of a smile on his face.

"Can you come out here for a second?" He asked. "I need a hand."

"You'll be eating rock hard peas for dinner, but sure." She abandoned the bag in the sink and followed him out, his hand clapping over her eyes the moment she stepped onto the porch. "Is this how you always get people to help you? Blind them?"

"So maybe it's a bit of a surprise." She felt him shrug, but as he silently guided her across the porch the wind shifted and carried a familiar sound with it – a sound she would have known anywhere, even in a crowded parking lot, even after more than a month of silence.

He turned her body so she was facing down the driveway and removed his hand, and she saw before her what she already knew would be there, and suddenly the sad tilt of his smile made perfect sense.

Parked in the overgrown driveway that ended twenty feet from the house was her car – bright and brilliant yellow against the setting sun, achingly familiar, growling a hello she felt in every part of her.

It was her car, here, and it was running.


	11. Chapter 11

A warm, perfect yellow in the fading sunlight, the car was singing to Emma in a faint growl and something inside of her was pulling towards it, remembering the way it felt to fly down the road together. But despite the years of memories piling up behind her eyes, she stayed frozen in place on the porch because as much as she thought the car would overshadow the weeks she had spend here, she still felt the tug of the house at her back and the garage down the hill and everything that came with them both.

"Hey." Killian said softly from a few steps ahead of her, and when she looked over at him with a helpless expression he just held out his hand and tipped his head towards the car. "I haven't test driven it yet, if you think the peas can wait."

"Screw the peas." She reached out and laced her fingers with his, let him lead her to the driver's side of the car, but held on one moment longer than she should have when he made to walk around to the passenger seat. "Hey," She said. "Thank you."

"Thank me if it actually works."

Her first thought was how ridiculous that was – if he thought that _she_ thought he would park the car here, keys in the ignition, a temptation and a promise and her heart in a metal shell, then he underestimated how well she knew him, now.

"Only one way to find out." She said instead, and caught the edge of his smile as he swung into the car in perfect time with her.

Part of her had been scared, before she sank into the seat, that after so long and so many changes that this car wouldn't be _hers_ anymore – wouldn't be _her_ anymore – but the moment the seat hugged her body with its familiar dips and curves, the moment she smoothed her hands over the shape of the steering wheel, the moment she eased on the clutch and shifted into gear…for the first time in a month and four days she felt the final piece of herself fall into place.

"Go easy on it the first time, yeah?" Killian said, catching her eye with his smile.

"Afraid your work won't hold up?"

"Afraid I won't." His grin turned slightly crooked and he pointed down the driveway with a flat palm. "But let's give it a try."

—-

She took it slow for the first fifteen minutes, driving up the main street and nearly to the town line, ringing around a small park and following the coast back towards the house while he asked her endless questions – how did it handle, how did it feel, how did it shift, how did it sound, was it the same as before, was it better? She answered every single one with a smile on her face because just like the repairs had been _more_ , these questions were too and she knew it was because he somehow understood that whatever question he asked about _this_ car she would have the answer to.

It should have terrified her, how well he knew her.

They were nearing the road that cut back up to the house, and she eased her foot on the clutch and off the gas to let the car slow on its own time. It barely had a chance to lose any of its momentum, though, before Killian's hand wrapped around hers on the gearshift and guided it into third. It was effortless, the shift, and even without the car feeding the answer to him through the pedals and the steering wheel and the pure harmony of _driving_ , he found the gear immediately as if he had been driving this car longer than she had.

Her expression spoke for her confusion, and he granted her another winning smile, saying simply, "It's not a real test until you do it at speed."

He didn't need to ask her twice.

She slid the car into third and let it climb, pressed the gas pedal until she felt it butt up against the floor, and kept it there until the car was shuddering in the low gear. She punched the clutch and it was a fraction of a breath of a second and shifting gears was pure instinct, in this car, but he beat her to it – his hand, still on top of hers, guiding the gear shift, and as she let the clutch out the engine slid into a seamless fourth.

"Sorry, love." He said, an incredulous laugh chasing the words because driving a car was not a team sport. "Instinct."

"Don't apologize." She flicked her gaze over to catch his for a moment, and offered him a small smile. "You're the whole reason this car's working and besides that, you didn't stall the car so there's no problem."

"Surprised I didn't."

"I'm not." With her eyes back on the road, Emma couldn't see Killian's expression, but she could feel his gaze burning into the side of her head and the intensity of it was thick in the space between them. He made a noise low in his throat, the beginning of words she was terrified of him saying, but the silence continued to stretch out in the moments that followed and she was simultaneously relieved and disappointed that it did.

Finally, he said, "Take a left up here and how about you show me what this car can do?"

She took the turn as instructed but let the car drift to a stop instead even though the open stretch of pavement in front of her looked like the freedom she had been chasing for too long. She could hear in her mind the sound he had made, the promise of words that he never spoke aloud, and even though she didn't know what it was he would have said had he given himself the chance, she had a good idea – and they were words she could not afford to let herself think about because they would anchor her here and for both of their sakes, she needed to go.

Still, there was something inside of her that was looking forward to dinner at home, to teasing him about his choice of TV show or beating him at game after game of go fish on the porch, to falling asleep with him next to her and waking up in the same sliver of space. There was something about the pull of that life that even the open road couldn't erase completely. She didn't know what this was, but she wanted him to know she felt it, too.

She opened the door of the idling car and stepped out onto the road, waiting next to the rumbling Bug until he came out a moment later and shot her a questioning look over the roof of the car. She tipped her head towards the driver's seat, towards the keys still in the ignition, and said finally, "How about you show me?"

—-

They drove for another half hour and when Killian finally pulled back up his own driveway, Emma wished they had stayed out all night. He was exactly the kind of driver she was – reckless but faultlessly competent – and the smile that had been playing on his lips the whole time he had driven her car up and down empty roads exactly mirrored how she felt every time she got behind the wheel. It wasn't the raw power and easy speed of the GTO, and she knew that a top speed of 120 wasn't anything extraordinary, but there was something about this car that made it perfect with all its quirks and flaws included.

The smile that stayed on his face even after he turned the car off, as they sat there listening to the car tick faintly as it cooled down, told her that some of that magic had worked its way into his veins already.

"This is…quite the vehicle you've got here, Swan." He said after a moment.

"It is, isn't it." She patted the dash fondly and closed her eyes for a long moment, the familiar scent of gasoline and vinyl and _years_ wrapping around her, and let that feeling of home find her as it always did in this car. When she opened her eyes she found him just watching her, a slightly wistful look on his face. She waited a moment to see if he would follow that look with anything more specific, but when he didn't she opened the door and swung out of the car, saying, "I should probably get back to the peas."

"How long do you think dinner will be?" He asked, stepping out of the car himself and coming to join her in front of the bumper. He leaned a hand against the hood as he listened, the gesture automatic and so familiar that something shifted inside of her chest. It took her a moment longer than it should have to answer.

"Half an hour?"

"I've got a few things I can finish on that Mustang, then, unless you need my help."

"I think I can handle some unruly peas and a frozen lasagna myself, thanks." She said with a wry smile. "But Killian?"

He opened his mouth to answer but it had never been her intention to give him a chance, leaning in and capturing his mouth with hers. She surprised him for a fraction of a second but then he was right there with her. He pulled her closer and spun her so she was leaning up against the hood of the car where his hand had been only a moment before, and the warm metal was an instant reminder of everything he had done to give her back the only thing that was truly _hers_.

She deepened the kiss, and she knew he knew why.

His hold tightened and got impossibly gentler at the same time, a hand sliding up to knot in her hair but the one still anchored on her waist soft and relaxed, and she let herself lean into him that much more to hold him closer in return. They held each other like precious things, and the moment was over far too soon.

Killian pulled away first, resting his forehead gently against Emma's, and his eyes were soft and blue and _full_ in the narrow space between them.

"See you at dinner." He said softly, pressing her keys into her hand before turning towards the garage. Something uncomfortable sprang to life inside her and she spun towards the house, picking her way up the overgrown drive to the steps because she suddenly found that she couldn't watch him walk away.

—-

Dinner was quiet and uneventful, eaten on the small table on the porch because the weather was unusually mild, and Killian went back down to the shop afterwards to finish whatever it was on the Mustang that couldn't wait until the morning. Emma took her time with the dishes, missing him beside her drying them like he usually did, and she only managed to spend about ten minutes afterwards trying to fill her time alone in the house before heading down towards the beacon of the garage windows in the dark.

She found Killian at his desk, and he looked up from his computer when she walked in.

"Finished already?" She asked, coming to lean against his side of the desk.

"I've got to order a part for it, so I won't be able to finish tonight. I was just about to come back up."

"That's good." They lapsed into silence as he finished the order, the sound of his fingers against the keyboard and the radio turned on low filling the room. She just watched him, chewing the inside of her hip, then added, "While you've got that on, would you mind pulling up my service record?"

"Sure." His gaze flashed to hers, the unconscious smile he had been wearing still on his face. "Why?"

"I…kind of haven't been keeping track and I'm not sure…" Her voice dropped low and she didn't want to say it, really, but: "How much I still owe you."

His smile was gone now.

"I know it's still a fair bit but I just want to get an idea of the number so–"

"So you can settle up and get on your way." He said.

"Yeah." Her voice was a whisper now and how could that single word hurt so much when she knew it was what needed to happen?

"Emma…" Killian scrubbed a hand over his face and rose to stand in front of her. The look on his face was one she had never seen, something between hurt and anger and longing and fear, and she couldn't have looked away from him even if she had wanted to. "I know I said I would only say this once, and I apologize for not being a man of my word, but…" His hand drifted up to scratch behind his ear now, and that gesture was so familiar… "You've saved his place – not just because of Gold's deal falling through, and not just because of all the work you've done here, but because–"

"Don't." She breathed, because she could see the words in his eyes.

"But because I was slowly letting this place fall out from under me," He said anyways. "And you saved it. Me. And I can't…" He bit his lip and she could tell that he could speak all night and still not say all he wanted, and the sheer enormity of that terrified her. "Please stay, Emma."

"Killian…" For the first time in weeks she felt the yawning chasm inside her open up, and it was twice as hollow and empty as it had been before she had forgotten it was there.

"Don't." He whispered in a broken voice.

"I can't, Killian." She said, pressing on as he had, and she was hurting both of them with her words but she needed him to understand. "This has been one of the best months of my life and I will always be grateful for that, but I have to go."

"There will be a place for you here as long as you want it, Emma. You don't _have_ to go."

"It's not because I think you don't want me here," She said, and it struck her hard to realize that for the first time in her life those words were true. "But it's been a month and neither of us knows what two months will be like, or three, or four, or a year…but everything falls apart eventually and I can't wait for that to happen." She pressed a hand against his forearm and drew his gaze, which had drifted to the floor, back up to hers so she could try to tell him with her eyes and her face and her _everything_ that this was for the best.

"What if this is the one time it doesn't?" He asked, his voice full of intensity now, and there was a fire burning behind his eyes as they held hers. "Why can't you just trust this – _me_ – and see if it pays off?"

"It's not that I don't trust you, Killian. But I can't watch this happen again. Not with you."

"It doesn't _have to_." He took two steps back as his voice rose, knotting his hands together so hard his knuckles turned white. "You're the only one making this an inevitability."

"Because it _is_ one." She said, fighting to keep her voice level. "It always has been and I'm not stupid enough to think that this time will be any different."

"Because you won't give me a chance."

"I just can't, Killian." She dropped her gaze because she knew she was hurting him, even if it _was_ for the best. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine, Emma." He sighed. She looked back up and though the fire was still burning behind his eyes and his hands were still clenched tight, he just looked tired. "We had our deal and I'll uphold it, but I had to say something in case…"

"I'm sorry, Killian." She whispered again. "I…"

"Don't. Please." He flashed her a sham of a smile and headed for the door, though she wasn't sure where he was going to go.

"I've still got to work off the rest." She said in a small voice. "We've still got time."

"Just leave now, Emma." He said, pausing in the door of the office and swivelling slightly to look back at her. "If this is what'll make you happy, just go. It's not about the money. It hasn't been about the money in a long time." He let out a soft laugh, a single syllable and so bitter that it broke what was left of her. "I thought you knew that."

He shrugged one shoulder as he disappeared into the garage, and his footsteps were soft as they echoed in the space, but his true feelings rang out in the hard slam of the garage door as he left.

—-

She was lying in the back seat of her car, staring up at the fabric of the ceiling and trying to remember that his home was not _her_ home, especially not now, when he came back. She heard his footsteps crunch on the gravel drive and she froze, hoping he would go up to the house or down to the garage and miss the shape of her in the back of the car.

He didn't, of course.

He knocked on the driver's side window and his face, when she sat up to look at him, was awful. He looked tired and broken and like he had been fighting himself every single moment since he had left the garage. If she hadn't already committed to leaving, this would have convinced her because she already done this much to him and she would only ruin things more if she let this go on any longer.

She climbed out of the car, wrapping her arms around herself as she faced him even though the night was still mild, and only as she opened her mouth did she realize she didn't know what to say.

"I'm sorry." He said instead, surprising her. He pulled a hand through his hair and his mouth twitched as though to offer her the gentle smile she had gotten so used to.

"For what? I'm the one who–"

"You're the one who was honest up front about her plans, and I'm the one who refused to accept it. It was bad form on my part, and I'm sorry."

"And I'm sorry too." She said, reaching out to brush her fingertips against the back of his hand. His gaze shot up to hers and what she saw in it she knew was mirrored in her own. "I'm sorry it has to be like this, but Killian…it's best for both of us if it is."

"I know you think it is." He laced his hand with hers and looked down at them. "You know when you're leaving?"

"I'm not going to go until I pay off what I owe, Killian. I'm not ripping you off."

"You've more than paid it back, Emma."

"I've barely worked…"

"I'm not just counting the work." He said, voice low, and he looked at her with a plea in his eyes that she not ask him to elaborate. "You're clear, Emma. You can go whenever you want."

"In the morning then, I guess." She whispered, dropping her gaze, and she heard his sharp intake of breath. "It'll be easier, I think, if I do."

"Whatever you want. Just…" He gestured towards the house with their joined hands and she looked back up at him – at the gentle, pained smile he had somehow put on – as he breathed, "Can we pretend for one last night that nothing's changed?"

"Okay." She bobbed a nod and pulled a smile from somewhere for him, and his brightened a fraction – not nearly the brilliant thing she had seen so many times, but closer.

He led her or she led him, but together they ended up in his room. His bed was a double and not quite comfortable for two people, but as they lay down together it was suddenly too large. She let her hand drift into the space between them and his was there a moment later, grabbing hers and pulling her close. She fit perfectly against him, pressed against his side with his arm around her, and as he let her hand go to wrap his other around her to draw her impossibly closer, she draped her arm over his chest to knot her hand in the fabric of his shirt, asking-without-asking for him not to leave, tonight.

The irony was a bitter taste in her mouth, but it didn't stop her from wanting it.

There were a thousand things she wanted to say to him in the quiet space of the room that had come to mean so much in this _house_ that meant so much, but she had said what needed to be said and anything else was just a cruel reminder. So she stayed silent and so did he, minutes piling on top of each other until she finally felt her eyelids start to drift shut.

She was just north of sleep when he whispered into her hair, "I miss you." His voice was jagged rocks and broken glass, and the sound of it made her chest collapse from the inside. "I miss you so much, Emma, and you're not even gone."

—-

They stood together by the open door of the car, and it was very hard for Emma to remember why she had to leave. She had woken up in Killian's arms, his breath warm and soft against the side of her head as he held her close, and she had forgotten for a moment that this wasn't just another day. The realization had come quickly, and when he had woken she was glad he hadn't seen the damp spots on his shirt that were evidence of how much she was destroying herself with her choice. They had a quiet breakfast – pancakes, like the very first one they had ever shared – and when she had started to clear the table he had stopped her.

"I'll do it later." He had said, and she had felt her eyes fill with tears at that, of all things.

"Will you?" She had asked, voice hoarse. "Because you haven't traditionally been the best housekeeper."

What she had really wanted to ask was _Will you be okay when I go?_ but she had given up her right to ask him questions like that, so she had let him answer with a nod she could tell was a lie, and hoist her duffel onto his shoulder.

And now they were here, standing by the car, and there were no more reasons for her to stay.

"You should be good to go." Killian said, his arms braced on the open door and the roof of the car with Emma standing between them. "It's running fine and you've got a full tank of gas…I topped up the oil yesterday so you shouldn't have any problems, and I put a map in your glove box just in case."

"Thank you, Killian. For everything."

"It's my job." He shrugged, and she could tell it killed him to be so casual when this was anything but.

"You did more than your job." Her voice dropped to a whisper and she _had_ to leave. "And I'm not going to forget that anytime soon."

"I would hope not." His voice dropped, too, and he leaned closer, pressing his forehead to hers one final time. "If I asked one last time…"

"My answer would still be the same." She breathed.

"Can't fault a man for trying." He let out a small chuckle, his breath dancing in the space between them, and she leaned in to brush a soft kiss against his lips before ducking down into the car. He stood there for a long moment just looking down at her, and she could barely look him in the eye. Then he stepped back and slammed the door, bracing his hands on his knees as he leaned down to peer in the window, and said simply, "Goodbye, Emma."

"Bye, Killian." She said in return, and there were so many words swirling in her mind but she couldn't manage anything more than this. "Thanks again."

He just nodded, pressing his lips together hard, and straightened. She started the car and didn't look at him – _couldn't_ look at him – as she put it in gear and started slowly down the driveway, but she waved one last time out the window. The mirrors were still adjusted to his height from yesterday's drive, and she didn't adjust them because this way, when she looked in them all she could see was a large swath of blue, blue sky and not even a hint of the house or the shop or Killian standing right where she had left him, hand raised in return with any semblance of a smile gone from his face.

Her chest felt hollow and she could feel the ragged edges of the hole there flare white-hot as she thought of the look in his eyes when he said goodbye.

She punched the gas hard and kept her eyes firmly on the road, flicking on the radio and blasting Killian's country station until she was well past the town line and the garage wasn't even a suggestion on the horizon.


	12. Chapter 12

This car had never been fast enough.

It was dark, the headlights barely keeping up with the road at the pace it was flashing by underneath the tires, but even though everything outside the window was a faint blur it still wasn't enough. It wasn't enough because it was 3am and because Killian had forgotten how empty the house got when he was the only one in it and because he couldn't lose himself in work anymore because the cavernous garage _echoed_ with memories of her like everything did now. So he drove.

The GTO wasn't an ideal choice, but it was the best he had. When he had opened the door the car had smelled like her, and the seat was still adjusted to her height and not his, and when he had turned the key all he had heard was the growl of the engine the day she had taken this car to the store and the beautiful, breathless smile that she hadn't been able to keep off her face when she came back. But here, at least, he could push the gas pedal further and further towards the floor, let the car press him back into his seat with rushes of speed, and try to delude himself into thinking he could outrun his memories.

The speed came in fits and starts though, because as desperate as he was to forget her, he was twice as desperate to grasp at his memories like straws and keep her close even though he had no right to, even though she clearly didn't want it.

Even steeped in recklessness and desperation, even half mad with adrenaline, even trying to lose himself in the glowing speedometer ticking higher and higher on the dial, he remembered holding her close in the early hours of the morning. He remembered the shape of her body moulded perfectly to his, her chest rising and falling gently, and the house suddenly alive and warm and _home_ for the first time in too many years. _She doesn't love you,_ he had reminded himself so many times in those fragile hours. _She is lonely and you are here and this is temporary_. But it was so easy to forget with her pressed up against him, with her in his kitchen in the morning, with her voice drifting across the garage as they worked in tandem, with her hand anchored in his as he spoke words nobody in the world had ever heard.

He had thought that despite her ever-clear intentions to leave, what lived between them would be enough to make her stay - or at least enough for her to _think_ about it. But no, the moment her car had been able to take her from him, she was ready to go. He punched the gas harder as he remembered because _this_ memory he had no problem outrunning: her voice telling him that she was going to leave in the morning, and the image that was now seared in his mind of her driving away from him and never looking back.

How long had he spent standing in the driveway like a bloody fool, staring at the horizon and wishing that she would turn around?

He was about to press the car further even though he was already asking it for more than enough, but as he blew past a crossroad the white and brown Sheriff's car pulled out after him, lights already on. He kept going and for one long moment, he though that David would let it go. But then the unmistakable blare of the siren cut through the growl of the GTO's engine and, with a sigh, Killian pulled his foot off the gas and let the car coast to a stop.

"If I thought a ticket would do you any good, I'd have given you about twenty over the past few days." David said when he came up to Killian's open window, leaning his forearms against the roof of the car and sighing heavily. "You've got to stop this, Killian. There are only so many times I can turn a blind eye before I have to bring you in, and the garage would go to shit if you lost your license."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Bullshit." David straightened and motioned for Killian to get out of the car. "This isn't anything you don't know already, but you need to start caring about the consequences."

"I'll slow down. I promise." Killian said and stayed in his seat a second longer, hoping that David would just let him go. The other man stared at him for a long moment but inclined his head towards the Sheriff's car again, and with a sigh Killian opened the door and hopped out. "Come on, Dave. Can we please not do this?"

"Hey, don't put this on me - you're the one who initiated this when you started ignoring the basic rules of the road."

Killian arched an eyebrow. "You going to take me in, then? Is that what this is?"

"We're going to go for a drive, you and I." David turned and headed back towards the car, calling over his shoulder, "Your car isn't going anywhere."

"The window's open!"

"There's nobody on these roads but you, Killian. Stop stalling." David sank into the cruiser's driver's seat and gave Killian a significant look through the windshield. Killian didn't know why he even bothered arguing - David was nothing if not persistent, when he wanted to be. So he followed, settling into the passenger seat and letting David pull onto the road, the silence between them too heavy for this to be a casual drive between friends.

David stayed quiet for a few blissful minutes, but there was no way it was going to last. Still, he drove them silently through town, following the country roads Killian had been driving all night, until they reached the harbour. He parked in a spot facing the water and the docks, all lit up and glowing faintly in the night, and then twisted until he was facing Killian.

"Did your wife put you up to this?" Killian asked.

"My wife didn't have to." David said. "I've seen you tearing around town in that car, and I can tell just by looking at you that you haven't been sleeping. And you're lucky I _haven't_ told my wife because we both know she wouldn't leave you alone if I did."

"I don't need a minder, Dave."

David just nodded, and Killian turned away from him as he let silence stretch between them again. David was as bad as Mary Margaret when it came to being a mother hen, and between that and his duties as Sheriff, Killian could only imagine the lecture he was in for if David was telling the truth about how many times he had seen Killian pushing the limits of what could be considered a safe driving speed.

"I know you miss her." David said instead, and that was the worst thing he could have done. Killian could have handled anger, frustration, disappointment...he could have handled yelling or threats of jail time. But the sheer gentle understanding in David's voice cut straight through him so when Killian spoke, it was around a sudden lump in his throat.

"I always knew she planned to leave." He said roughly. "I don't-"

"Don't waste your breath lying to me. Just because you knew she was going to leave doesn't mean you can't miss her. And frankly, after seeing you two together, _I_ thought she was going to stay. I can only imagine what it must have been like for you."

"Can you now?" Killian barked a laugh. "No, David, she was always very clear with me about how temporary her stay was going to be. I was the one who wasn't willing to hear her."

"There was something there, Killian. I know it, you know it, and she had to know it too. And losing that..."

"Can we not?"

David gave Killian a look that said he knew that this was pure denial, but still shifted in his seat so he was staring out the windshield. Killian could see his eyes skim over the faint shape of the waves in the dark and suddenly it became clear that he was very studiously _not_ looking at Killian. "I just remember those weeks and months after Liam-"

"David..." Killian could hear the warning in his own voice as he cut David off because the man could talk about Emma all he wanted but he was not allowed to pull either of them back into the memory of what things had been like after Liam's death. David said weeks and months but what he meant was _years_ \- years of sleepless nights and restlessness and the house suddenly being too much and not enough, of hours spent in the garage and on the streets around town, of speeds that made his whole body buzz with adrenaline and his life seem so fragile, of early mornings sitting in booths at the diner with bitter black coffee and a heavy weight in the air between them because David had bailed him out too many times when he got caught by a Sheriff who was far less understanding than David was now.

"I just don't want to see you lose yourself again." David said gravely. "That's all."

Killian wanted to brush him off, but there was too much history there to tell David that he was overreacting, or to deny that _losing himself_ was exactly what Killian was doing.

"Noted." He managed finally. "But may I also point out that I don't need a babysitter and that I can make my own choices?"

"As your friend, I can't let you do that. And as a law enforcement professional I'm duty-bound to tell you that your current choices are going to land you in a cell if you don't quit it, alright?"

"No more speeding." Killian bobbed a nod. "Are you going to take me back to my car now, or will I be walking?"

"That depends. Are you going to listen to me?"

"No more speeding. I promise."

"It's not just that. It's the driving, the late nights, you in the garage at all hours...it's you undermining your own happiness that I don't want to see."

That was laughable, almost, that David couldn't see how everything Killian did was an attempt to get to a place where he _could_ be happy - where he could forget enough about his past to have a chance at some sort of future. But as much as Killian wanted to cover it up with a bitter laugh and a raised brow and a response that would hide more than it revealed, he couldn't think of _happiness_ and not remember the acute sensation of waking up that first morning with Emma in his bed, knowing that he had spent a full night in a house that had been nothing but ghosts for so long, and thinking for the first time in a long time that maybe _happy_ was something he could be again.

He closed his eyes against the memory because it hadn't been true, of course. "She's everywhere, David." He ground out. "How am I supposed to just...go back to things being normal when she is _everywhere_?"

"I don't know if I have the answer to that one." David said. He was silent for a moment after that and Killian let his head fall back against the headrest, eyes still closed. If David didn't have the answer, how the hell was he supposed to come up with it?

A few more long moments, then David spoke again. "How serious did things get between the two of you?" He asked. "Did you..."

"Not serious in the way you're thinking. But just..." Killian opened his eyes and looked helplessly at his friend because they had gotten _somewhere_ but he didn't have the words.

"Serious in a way that matters more." David supplied with a nod. "Did you tell her?"

"I told her I wanted her to stay. I told her that things had changed with her here. I told her..." He paused a moment until regret wasn't such a bitter taste in his mouth, because he had told her a lot of things but he _hadn't_ told her what David was getting at now. "She had to know how much I wanted her here, Dave. Over a month together and she _had to_."

"You sure about that?"

"I don't know what I'm sure of anymore." Killian pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "But the fact remains that _she_ is the one who left after starting something and I don't have the right to change her mind. She was always honest with me about what she wanted and even if what _I_ want doesn't line up, that's up to me to handle."

"And what _do_ you want?" David asked quietly, and even though he wasn't looking at the other man Killian could feel David's careful stare.

 _A future_ he thought instantly, because he had known that first week how far he wanted things to go with Emma. But he meant what he said: yes she had started something with him, yes she had made him feel more than he had felt in years, yes she had made him hope that his wishes and hers were becoming the same, and yes she had left, but he had known right from the start that what was between them could only ever be temporary, and he wasn't going to let himself want anything more than what he had gotten because even that was more than he could ever have hoped for. So he locked _a future_ away with the other things he had lost, and instead said, "I want to not be discussing my feelings in the early hours of the morning with my mate in a police car. And I'd very much like if you'd take me back to my car. Please."

David stared at him for another long moment, and Killian didn't dare so much as dart his gaze over to the other man because he knew David knew exactly what Killian was doing, and how little this dismissal meant that he was in any way over Emma or over any of it. But David had known Killian too long to think that pushing would get him anywhere, so he just started the car back up in silence and pulled back onto the road.

Killian was three cups deep in his pot of coffee the next morning but he still felt like he was working through a fog, the late night and several others before it weighing heavily as he walked into the front lot to a Volvo 760 that was supposed to have been finished two days ago. It wasn't just that Emma had left him one staff member short, but that it took him twice as long now to do the work that was slowly piling up around him because he kept finding himself turning around to catch words that weren't being spoken from across the garage, starting to make a comment on whatever it was he was doing before realizing that there was nobody there to hear it, and looking for an extra pair of hands to help him before realizing that they weren't there.

He had intended to move the car inside to start working on it, but instead he sank down into the driver's sear and pressed his forehead against the harsh line of the doorframe. He closed his eyes and tried to focus his mind, tried to make everything _clear_ in a way it hadn't been in...if he was being honest, in a way it hadn't been since Emma left.

His days now were marked by the hours passing by in the empty garage, by days that flew by without him saying a word to another person, by the constant reminders that what he was living on now were memories. Most of all, it was the sensation that everything was off-balance and that he had no clue how to find a place where he could just _be_ again - where his life felt like something he was building instead of like he was just passing time. He couldn't help but feel that this was all so _deeply_ unfair because it had been _one month_ together that had done this to him, and only weeks _together_ together - all of it with someone who had never intended to stay, had never intended to build the kind of future he couldn't keep himself from imagining, and had never told him anything that should have led him to think any differently.

Still, here he was, feeling so acutely the hole in his life she was never meant to have made.

 _Did you tell her?_ David had asked. Killian thought that he had, and though that he hadn't _needed_ to. But now he thought that maybe everything he was feeling was on him because if he had told her in as many words that she had somehow staked a claim to part of him - that somewhere in the midst of teasing him across the garage and eating breakfast across the table from him and listening without judgement or, worse, pity when he told her _everything..._ that somewhere in the midst of all of that she had become something so much more to him - then maybe she would have stayed.

He dug in his pocket and palmed his cell phone, staring at it for a moment and wondering if somehow he could turn this all around. He still had her number saved, along with a goofy photo she had taken one day in the garage without him noticing, and it would take nothing for him to call her, say... _something_ , and see if it would make any kind of difference. He ran a finger over the screen and it came to life, and was it so wrong for him to fight for this? He scrolled through his contacts until he found her, and he didn't know what he would say when - if - she picked up but could he go through another monotonous day with _what if_ still heavy in the air?

But no. No, because what happened between them wasn't up to him. No, because she wanted to leave and it wasn't fair to question that. No, because it had always been her choice. Always would be.

He straightened and slammed the car door, tossed the phone on the seat beside him and waiting until the screen turned black before twisting the key harshly in the Volvo's ignition and backing it into the empty garage.


	13. Chapter 13

He fell asleep on the couch at a time of night that was technically morning, and dreamt of the way she drove.

He had only seen her in her car once, but that was where his mind placed her. The whole dreamscape was bright and a breath of summer, the yellow of the car and the gold of her hair and the warm, comfortable scent of leather and vinyl dancing across his senses until he wasn't sure it was a dream anymore.

He hoped it wasn't a dream, but he knew better than to let hope sink its claws into him.

Dream-Emma had one hand loose on the wheel, sitting low on the curve of it and practically in her lap, and the other hand resting comfortable on the gear shift. Her thumb rubbed a gentle pattern on the leather of the steering wheel, and there was a smile on her face that he had never seen before - something serene and peaceful and _right._ Her body was moulded perfectly to the seat and she leaned into it like it was _everything_ , and every slightly lost look she had ever shot this car across the garage suddenly made perfect sense.

They turned a corner and she steered with one hand, a single finger sliding to the groove where the centre crosspiece of the steering wheel met the edge then the heel of her hand skimming along the curve of the wheel with just enough pressure to coax the car around the corner, all of it as the other hand worked the gearshift in perfect time. She let go at the apex of the curve, the wheel turning back around under her palm, and the whole thing was so effortless and comfortable that he could see in this moment how much she was this car and it was her.

He didn't want to stop looking at her - at the smile she wore for this car, at the way her hands fell against its various knobs and dials, at her eyes brilliant and green in the sun shining through the window - but dream-him let his eyes drift shut anyways, the sun warming the side of his face as the car sped along in gentle rhythm.

But then he was standing in the middle of the road, the solid ground suddenly too steady under his feet, and all he could see where the taillights of the car as it sped away from him. And it _sped,_ the casual pace of the car now replaced with something reckless and dangerous, and even though it was the Bug before him, Emma was driving it like she had driven that silver Rabbit the morning he realized how hard he had fallen in so short a time. But it almost wasn't _Emma_ because the car wasn't steady in its speed - it was all over the road, the lane markings nothing but lines on the pavement, and she was getting dangerously close to the deep ditches and hydro poles on the other side of the gravel shoulder.

Then suddenly it wasn't Emma anymore, but Liam and the Volvo he had been driving the day that became his last, and as the front end of the car crumpled like paper around the uncompromising pillar of a hydro pole, he saw both of them slumped against the steering wheel - two images superimposed, everything he had lost in one convenient package.

He was both too cold and too warm when his eyes snapped open, the indistinct darkness of the living room empty and lonely except for thoughts that were spiralling out of control, overflowing from his head to fill the too-large space. With both parents gone, a policeman had told him about Liam. But Emma?

Emma could be gone in more ways than he could count, and nobody in the world would know enough to tell him.

He pushed himself off the couch with a heavy sigh, his neck stiff from the position he had been in and the stress of having his losses play out so vividly, and he so badly wanted to get in the GTO and tear down the roads ringing the town - push the car and himself until there was no space to think about anything but the road in front of him. But David was right - he couldn't keep flouting the law and expect there not to be consequences. Besides that, he couldn't keep letting this eat him alive because he had no right to it - no right to Emma, and no right to the pain losing her had left behind.

He went to the kitchen instead, put on a pot of coffee because sleep was an unrealistic hope now, and tried not to think of the way Emma looked in the morning, half-asleep and in his bathrobe, making pancakes at his stove. He tried not to think about warm water swirling around his hands as she teased him about leaving his dishes everywhere like a heathen. He tried not to think about her because he couldn't think about her, not without losing himself to it, and because she hadn't come here for him to fall for her, to become a part of this house and his life as much as she had, or to make such an impact that her absence echoed everywhere.

He turned his back on the kitchen, looking out across the living room as he listened to the coffee drip, and told himself that he wasn't going to think about her again. Not now, not ever.

It was a foolish thing to think, really, because she was everywhere - but still, he kept his promise, mostly. The garage bay on the right, the one that had turned into _hers_ , ended up occupied by cars so he could bounce between two jobs and let the momentum finish the work for him. He went to David's for dinner and though there were no onion rings in the centre of the table and the seat beside him was empty, the loft rang with laughter and stories, and he realized how foolish it was to call himself lonely. He test drove car after car and the fact that she wasn't in the seat next to him felt less and less like a hole in his chest. It felt like getting over her, and two weeks seemed like an awfully short time to do it in, but part of him knew that he would never truly be _over_ any of it - that she would linger in the months and years following, and that something fundamental inside of him had changed and that the effects would linger long after the scent of her faded from his spare pair of coveralls.

Four days after she left, he climbed the stairs to the second floor - the first night he didn't force himself to sleep on the couch or the chair in his office or anywhere but the bed that was too big without her - and lingered in the door of his room. He remembered her here, leaning against the doorframe, and him in the bed and _terrified_ because night was for ghosts and bad memories and not for sleeping, not a full night. Not here. But she had curled next to him and he had woken that night and every other after it to the sun pink on the horizon and her toes pressed to his calves in the cool morning air.

He didn't expect to wake anywhere close to dawn, but against all odds...

No, that wasn't right. It wasn't against all odds that he opened his eyes the next morning to a crisp golden sun with a peaceful, dreamless night behind him - it was because Emma wasn't just lingering in the garage and the kitchen and the living room and the GTO. She was lingering in the soft press of her fingers to his arm as he faced Gold across the shop, in the gentle firmness in her voice as she told him he was staying in his own house for one night, and in the ghost of her palm in his as he filled in the pieces of why everything was so hard. She was lingering, and he was so much better for it.

That weekend, he replaced the broken window in the room next to his.

The days she was gone piled up until it was one week, and then two. He could see the difference their time together had made in the house, in his business, and in the way his smiles came more readily when he passed people on the street. He could see it in the jokes David made about the lack of speeding tickets issued late at night, in the way Mary Margaret stopped making it a big deal when he stopped by after work, and in the way Gold glared at him as though he wanted so badly to sink him but couldn't find a way anymore.

It was late afternoon and he was half underneath a 90′s Nissan when the phone rang. The radio was blaring, filling the garage right up to the ceiling, so he only _just_ heard it, jogging slightly into the office to answer because he wasn't sure how long it had been ringing underneath the loud guitar.

The moment he answered, he missed Emma tenfold.

"Hello?" Said the woman on the other end. She had a high pitched voice that grated instantly, and he wanted to hang up. "I think something's wrong with my car? It might be a flat tire, but it stopped just outside of town?"

"And what kind of car do you drive?" Killian asked, palming his keys and turning down the radio.

"A red...Honda? I'm sorry, it's my husband's car."

He missed Emma. He missed the way she would have told him the make, model, and year of the car she was driving. He missed the way she never would have been driving a car that wasn't hers in the first place. He missed the way she would have poked fun at him even over the phone, the way she had the very first day she found him in the garage. He missed the way she would have fixed the problem herself and never had to call him at all.

She was still here in a million small ways, but hearing a voice that wasn't hers made him miss her all the same.

"How about you tell me where you are," He said finally. "And I'll see what I can do?"

It was cruel irony that the woman was broken down just North of the town sign.

As he pulled up, he could see a chrome bumper and not much else peeking out from behind the cheerful "Welcome to Storybrooke". He wasn't feeling very cheerful, but he plastered a customer-grade smile on his face as he neared the sign.

That smile dropped as he got close enough to it to see the car the bumper was attached to. Yellow, bulbous, older than he was, and he knew every inch of it.

And it was most certainly not a Honda.

He pulled up behind the Bug and got out of the truck slowly, and part of him thought that this couldn't be real. But there was Emma leaning against the side of the car, a smile half on her face but a terrified look in her eyes.

He stopped a few feet from her and waited, her mouth opening but closing again instantly, words she wanted to say building behind her eyes. He knew he should look away, give her some space to think because she didn't look at all certain about being here - _and why would she_ \- but he couldn't. Two weeks he had been seeing her face places it wasn't, convincing himself to stop looking for it, but now that she was in front of him he couldn't just look away. So instead he let his eyes trace the fall of hair over her shoulder, gold in the sunlight and so much _more_ than he had remembered; the precise shade of green of her eyes as they darted up to his face and away, and how everything that ran through her mind was reflected in them; the way her hand pressed against the metal of the Bug to ground her, and the way her fingers danced against it; the way she was _here_ , in front of him, and so real that he wondered how he had ever lived on memories.

She was silent through it all, so eventually he just said, "Tell me I'm not imagining this, Emma."

"That depends." Her voice was low and fragile, and the eyes that darted up to meet his were half-undone already. "Do you want to be?"

"How could you even -"

"Because I left." She cut in, reading his mind like she always did. "Because it was all right in front of me and I didn't listen and I drove away and that's my fault, so if you didn't want -"

"Emma." He was aware that interruptions piling on interruptions was no way to have a conversation, but he couldn't let her even finish a _thought_ that suggested he wanted anything else than her, here, forever. "You cannot seriously ask me if I want you here after..." After what? After she had come into his life and made it hole again? After he had fallen in love with her and let her go? After they had built something like a life for themselves here together in a month and four days?

"I know." She said softly. "But I let things happen between us and then I ruined them." _Like I ruin everything_. He could see the rest of her sentence in her eyes, and remembered her telling him that night in his boat that everything she ever had fell apart. "And it would be well within your rights to ask me to go, because I'm the one who left first."

Her voice petered off to nothing and he had always told himself that above all he would give her the space to decide where things went between them, but she was hunched into herself and her eyes were still uncertain and her knuckles were white from the force of her hand pressing against the Bug, and he couldn't stand here two feet and too far away from her, just letting it happen.

And he couldn't let them dance around this anymore because the last time he had, he had lost it.

"Emma." He closed the two feet quickly, steadying himself with a hand against the roof of the car, and he could have sworn she stopped breathing. "Neither of us expected this. This was supposed to be a repair job, nothing more. But what we got..." He felt a smile touch his lips, and he saw an answering one on hers. "I don't know how to handle this either, or where it's going to go. But I'm willing to find out, if you are."

Her gaze dropped to the gravel shoulder beneath their feet, and when she looked back up the uncertainty was gone from her eyes. "Why do you think my car broke down in this exact spot?"

"Something about this town must be unlucky, I guess." He said, leaning that much closer until her breath and his were one live thing.

"Or lucky." She whispered.

"If I had my choice, I'd say -"

He didn't have a chance to say _lucky_ because then her lips were on his, her free hand wrapping around his shoulders and drawing him closer. He could feel her settle against the side of the car, her back arching to accommodate the slight curve, and the solidity of it was good for both of them because he felt like he was made of air.

She pulled away slightly and breathed into the air between them, "So you'll forgive an idiot who drove away from the best thing staring her right in the face?"

"Only if you'll forgive an idiot who let his happy ending drive away in a car he rebuilt himself." He murmured, letting a smile crawl across his face as he pulled her to him again.

As he brushed a gentle kiss against her lips, he threaded a hand in her hair and she smiled against him because this - this was familiar. This was _home_ the way it hadn't felt in two weeks, and if he was right and this town _was_ lucky, this would turn into home for two more weeks, two more years, and beyond.

She hadn't wanted to let him go, but they had two cars crowded on the shoulder behind the Storybrooke sign so she had to settle for following too close behind the truck on the way home. She could see the back of Killian's head through the truck's rear window, and more often than was probably safe she caught a flash of hopelessly blue eyes in the rearview mirror as he looked back at her, making sure she was there.

He had nothing to worry about - she was stupid enough to leave once, but she wasn't stupid enough to leave twice.

She half-expected an interrogation or at least some kind of discussion about what had happened - the falling for each other, the weeks spent with two lives practically one, the her driving away and never looking back - but when they pulled up the driveway he just hopped out of the truck as casually as he had every single day she had been there before. He waited for her to park next to him and pulled her to him when she got out of the Bug, slinging an arm around her shoulder and leading the way through the back door of the garage. The shop smelled like oil and iron and old coffee, and she hadn't realized how much she had missed it all.

She didn't know why Killian would have pushed her to talk about any of it when all he had ever been was understanding. Instead, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head - one that lasted slightly too long, but that she wished lasted longer - and nudged her towards the repair bay beside his.

"It missed you." He said softly, nodding towards the power jack and the mess of tools along the back wall and the dirty coveralls folded on a stool.

"Just the garage?" She asked, arching an familiar eyebrow that made him laugh out loud - a full, bright thing that filled the garage.

"Just the garage." He said with a wink, but the eyes behind it were too soft and too full to mean it.

She walked over to grab the coveralls, sliding them on over her jeans in a motion that felt so, so familiar. He settled in to work, angling his body over the engine of a beat up Nissan so he was still facing her, and as he started whistling softly along to radio something in her chest shifted because this was everything she had been missing, everything that made her chest so hollow in the weeks she had been away, everything she had been a fool to give up.

"Hey Killian?" She called across the space, her voice pitched exactly right to carry over the radio and across the wide garage. His eyes caught hers and she shot him a smile, and she hoped it said everything she wanted it to. "My garage missed you too."

He asked the question she had been waiting for later that night, tangled together in his bed, the space between them nonexistent but still not close enough.

"Where did you go?" His voice was barely a breath in the dark, but she was so close she would have heard anything.

"Florida." She whispered. "Key West."

"What's in Florida?"

"Nothing." She pressed her forehead to his chest because only once she had gotten there had she realized how much _nothing_ was anywhere after she had gotten a taste of _everything_ here. "I thought...I thought that if I got the farthest away I could get from here that leaving would start to make sense. That it would be different enough that..." She cut off, because how did she even begin to explain the things she had thought would make a difference when the real difference had been in front of her all along?

"That what?" He prompted gently, running a finger up and down her spine as he did.

"That I'd forget about this." She breathed. "About...the fact that I love you. And I can't let myself..."

"Then don't." He pressed his lips to the top of her head, and she could feel the shape of his smile. "Then let me love _you_ , because I do. And I plan to for as long as you'll let me. So you don't have to love me back."

"Too late." She felt an answering smile light on her face. "I knew it was too late in New Hampshire, and again when I was stuck in traffic in New York, and all the way down the coast, and every day in Florida until I finally turned around and came back."

He drew her impossibly closer just let the words hang between them, the gentle night and sheer comfort of _finally_ being together enough to say anything that hadn't already been said.

She waited until his breathing evened out, and whispered, "It's been too late for a long time."

The next morning dawned lazy and bright, and Emma leaned against the kitchen counter as she watched Killian struggle with cinnamon rolls. She tried to keep the smile off her face for his sake, but she couldn't help the hint of it that found its way out because he was covered in flour and trying very hard, and because their whispered _I love you's_ were still ringing in her mind. She could see the sun edging over the horizon out the window, painting the field in front of the house in shades of gold, lighting softly on the Bug nestled in the driveway next to the truck and the GTO, all waiting for whatever came next.

She couldn't help the soft sigh that escaped because lo and behold, she had blinked and Saturday breakfasts in the kitchen with Killian Jones had become her forever.

 _Perfect_.


	14. Extra 1

**A Sea Of Rain And A Very Happy Ending**

The rain was a gentle hush against the tin roof, the patter soft but insistent, faint silver streaks of it making marble patterns on the windows against the deep grey of the clouds rolling on the horizon. The sound of it coaxed Emma awake and she blinked slowly for a moment, watching the vague poetry the water made against the glass until she realized that she could feel the same shapes soft as a whisper in the space between her shoulder blades.

"Morning, love." Killian murmured as she turned her head to face him. His nose was inches from hers, the two of them pressed close in the narrow space of his double bed. It wasn't a bed meant for sharing, but that had never stopped them.

"That's nice." She breathed back, letting her eyes drift shut, angling herself and shifting impossibly closer so she was nestled under his chin. She felt more than saw his soft chuckle and not a moment later his fingers, which had stilled with the sound of his voice, started their faint dance against her back again, the soft falls of his fingertips following the sound of the rain.

"It's late." He whispered after another long moment, his words insistent but his tone reluctant as his hands stilled again. She pulled away with a sigh and rolled onto her back, finding his gaze as he propped himself up on an elbow beside her and offered her a gentle smile. "Almost nine."

"Maybe the clocks are wrong." She chased his hand across the mattress, lacing her fingers with his and holding them up in the faint grey light. She could have spent hours tracing the silhouette of their hands with her eyes – the seamless shape of their knuckles fitting together, the shadows of the racing clouds painting pictures across their skin, the rough lines of his hand bleeding into the delicate creases of hers. They were an impossible puzzle, but somehow they always fit.

"If only." He tugged their joined hands towards him enough to brush his lips across her knuckles – he had done it a hundred times since that first night on the floor of the garage, and it never failed to send a faint thrill up the column of her spine – and then let her go, rolling out of bed with a sigh she knew she wasn't meant to have heard. "Come on, Swan. We've got a shop to run."

"There's nothing that _has_ to get done today, you know." She muttered, though she slid out of bed as she did and shrugged on the flannel bathrobe she had left pooled on the floor the night before. "We don't have to open."

"You're the one always going on about walk in traffic."

"Who's walking today?"

"Maybe someone who needs ten thousand dollars worth of repairs."

"As if." She rolled her eyes at him and came up behind him, shoving through the doorway.

"I'll make you a deal." He walked backwards down the stairs, his eyes dancing and impossibly blue as he shot her another smile. "If I go down and open the shop, you make breakfast. What do you think?"

"I think you've got yourself a deal." Emma stopped short on the final step, Killian standing on the ground in front of the stairwell. He was looking at her with that smile tilting a corner of his mouth – the smile he wore just for her – and despite the dim grey sky pressing against the windows, the sun shone for a brief moment in that look.

"If you're forcing me out in the rain, might I make a request, then?" He pulled her towards him, his hands soft on either side of her hips, and held her close as he swung her the final step to the ground. Even when her feet were steady on the cool floor, she didn't pull away.

"Maybe." Her voice was slightly breathy and she knew it, but he was still looking at her with that expression that looked like a summer's day. "If you asked nicely."

He leaned in close then, his lips brushing hers, and she wouldn't let herself chase them as he kept this kiss an _almost_ , she wouldn't, she wouldn't…

…she leaned into him slightly, and it was entirely the uneven floor and not at all the maddening whisper of heat against her skin in the chill room, but for a fraction of a second she was against him and what was between them wasn't a whisper but a sudden rush of sound and light and heat, and when she pulled back – found her footing on the crooked floor and stopped needing him to steady her on the uncertain planks, because that's all it ever was – his eyes were a shade darker than they had been, an ocean dropping away from the shore, and the smile she shot him was smug.

"Pancakes." He said in a rough voice, his hands dropping from her hips to scrub through his hair. "My request is pancakes."

"I think," She said over her shoulder, heading towards the kitchen as he shook his head with a grin and shrugged on a rain jacket. "I can make that happen."

It usually only took Killian fifteen minutes to open the shop – to unlock the doors and turn on the lights and shuffle through his service list until he remembered what needed to be done – so Emma didn't expect to be waiting for him with a bowl of pancake batter beside her and a frying pan waiting to be used. But twenty minutes and then half an hour later she was still sitting on the counter watching the rain fall, the radio playing soft strains in the background. She had just about convinced herself to go out and see what was taking so long when he blew through the door, a strong gust of wind splattering drops on the wood of the floor before he got the door shut. His hair was jet black and plastered to his head, but he was smiling a brilliant and curious smile at her as he shouldered off his jacket.

"Don't tell me someone came in with ten thousand dollars in repairs." She said, letting him see a flash of her smirk before she turned around to ladle the batter into the waiting frying pan.

"Better." He came into the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of coffee and leaning against the counter beside her. "Roof's leaking."

"What?" That made her freeze, darting a glance up at him.

"The garage roof. That crack in the ceiling's leaking."

"Well shouldn't we be _down there_?" Emma dropped the ladle back in the bowl, already half turned towards the door before he caught her around her waist.

"Relax, love. It's a drip, not a flood. I've been expecting it for a while but beyond moving things out of the way and putting down a bucket, which I've done, there's not much we can do to fix it until the rain stops."

"So what? We're just going to work around the leak?" She sighed and gave him a look. "Honestly, if you fixed these problems when they came up…"

"If I did, then we wouldn't have a perfect excuse for a day off." He looked down at her, his gaze significant, and she realized at once what she should have initially – this was a problem for tomorrow, but for _today_ it was a gift in disguise. He saw realization dawn in her eyes and just chuckled softly at her, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead before releasing her. "Now, I believe there were pancakes in the works."

"I believe there were."

Despite Killian making a nuisance of himself, snaking his arms around her waist and pressing his face – cool and damp with the rain – against her neck while she tried to make serviceable pancakes, they ended up with a stack better fit for four people than for two, but there was no urgency to the morning so they worked at it over the space of an hour, the borders between their two plates virtually nonexistent as they stole bites from each other just because they could.

The storm worsened over breakfast, the sky nearly black and lightning cutting jagged lines to the horizon. Killian flicked on every light on the main floor while Emma started the dishes so the house was a golden halo on top of the hill. He snagged a dish towel from the handle of the oven and came to stand beside her, leaning his hip against the counter while she washed.

There were four dishes waiting expectantly on the counter before she realized that he was just staring at her.

"What?"

"Nothing." He was smiling that private smile again and she had to duck her head to hide the colour she could feel rush to her face. In this house on the hill, full of pancakes and wrapped in the soft yellow lamplight, that smile felt like a promise they hadn't put to words yet.

Another long moment passed, the weight of that gentle gaze and the soft strains of guitar filling the room, until he dropped his towel on the counter and reached over to pull the dishcloth from her hands.

"What are you doing?" She asked, Killian drawing her a few steps from the sink, holding both her hands in his.

"This song shouldn't be wasted, love." He started to bop from side to side, his shoulders bouncing in a way that was _so_ unlike him, and she couldn't help the smile that split her face.

"This isn't country – you're not supposed to like it."

"So maybe I've expanded my horizons." He pulled her closer, her hands looping around his neck as naturally as if they belonged there. His hands settled on her waist and guided her in a bouncy circle. "Or maybe I just wanted to dance with you in our kitchen."

"I'll take either." She said, a helpless laugh escaping as he spun her out and back into his chest, wrapping around her from behind. His lips pressed to the top of her head as they swayed gently for a few beats, and he hummed happily. Then they were off again, Killian guiding her arms from behind in a strange, jerky dance out into the living room, the two of them pressed together back-to-chest, and as he spun her back around she was helpless with laughter. His eyes, too, shone with it, pulling her close again to waltz around the couch even though she had no idea how to waltz, and for a moment she forgot about the rain and the shop down the hill that was filling with water drop by drop – forgot about everything, past, present, and future except for this moment in this gold-washed house with his arms around her.

As the last chord of the song echoed out from the kitchen and as he dipped her low to the floor, she wished it would go on forever.

There was plenty to do in the house – laundry and vacuuming and a fridge that could have been organized and months worth of accounts that could have been reviewed to get ahead of the year-end rush – but Emma let Killian pull her over to the couch after the rest of the dishes were done, sharing one cushion with him despite the whole couch being free and flicking on a movie to fill the afternoon. They watched his pick first, a comedy that made his chest rumble with laughter against her cheek, and then they watched hers – Singing in the Rain, from start to finish.

He loved it as she knew he would, and he hummed the songs all the way through a pizza dinner they ate together on the porch, sitting on the worn planks and pressed against the wall of the house to avoid the rain that was blowing towards them. It was dark and the wind was strong but protected by the bulk of the house and pressed together from ankle to shoulder, the rain was nothing more than the lazy drops from the edge of the roof and the ever-present music of it against the gravel drive.

The power went out around eight-thirty and before he had a chance to find a flashlight that worked, Emma twined her fingers with Killian's and tugged him gently up the stairs and back into the cocoon of a room they had left that morning. Because he knew her, he could tell even in the dark what she was after, sinking down onto the mattress a beat before she did and letting her tumble against him when she followed a moment later. As she found her place nestled against his chest with her ear pressed to the spot above his heart, he thumbed at the edge of the soft flannel robe that wasn't really his anymore.

"I hope the rain never stops." He breathed, his voice almost lost in the whisper of the rain on the roof.

"It has to eventually." She whispered in the dark, spreading her hand flat on his chest and tracing gentle whorls there. "We'd float away."

He hummed his assent and his other hand found the soft tangle of curls in her hair, wrapping one around his finger.

She tilted her head to press her lips to the underside of his chin, her words spoken straight into his skin. "I wouldn't mind."

His arms tightened around her but the closeness of the house around them both and the gentle magic of a stolen day together made words an unnecessary chore. They drifted off in the same span of moments, and Emma thought as they did that they could sail the world in this house, on a sea made of raindrops, and she would call it a very happy ending.


	15. Extra 2

**A/N:** Emma's POV in the weeks she was away from Killian. Written for CS AU Week on Tumblr.

* * *

Emma had always been good at telling herself no.

The country station that had become all too familiar over the past month had dissolved into static half an hour ago and now the car was filled with forgettable alt-rock and the hum of the road beneath her tires, and all of it sounded like _no_. No, she shouldn't stay in the house up on the hill; no, she shouldn't let herself believe Killian when he told her she was welcome; no, she shouldn't chase something that might make her happy because it could all still fall apart. No, she shouldn't listen to the insistent thought that this _wouldn't_ fall apart, that this time was different. No, no, always no.

The sky was a clear, cloudless blue and the sun was brilliant, slowly sinking towards the western horizon as she drove farther and farther past midday. She didn't really know where she was going but she knew it had to be _away –_ far and fast enough that there was nothing remotely nearby to tug her back the way she had come. It was strange, the sensation of needing to run from something that was building instead of from something that had fallen apart, but the habit was too familiar to feel wrong even if the reason she was running was something entirely new.

She braked at a stop sign and kept her eyes firmly on the road in front of her as a soft wind came through the open window to tangle in her hair, as the rays of late sunlight dappled her arms in patches of heat, and told herself very firmly _no_ as her thoughts strayed to evenings after work on Killian's porch, his hair a riot in the breeze that blew over the field and his fingers following the streaks of sun across her skin.

For a moment the folky guitar coming through the speakers sounded too much like the soft strains that always filled the garage and her next breath was laced with _Killian_ , the way the air swirled between them when he leaned in close and his nose brushed hers. She knew the turns she would have to take to get back to Storybrooke. She knew how fast she would have to drive to get there before dark. She couldn't remember, in that moment, why she was running.

 _No_. She told herself. _It's not for you. Not anymore_.

She pressed the gas a little too hard as she left the stop sign behind her, as she got that much farther away from Killian, his house, and everything that could have been.

Emma had always been a little _too_ good at telling herself no.

—-

She drove until it was dark, until the yellow lane lines blurred together in the glow of her headlights, and pulled into a rest stop just off a highway she barely knew. She had taken a deliberately roundabout route to get here, enough so that she wouldn't be able to find herself back on Killian's doorstep without a map and a lot of intention, and she didn't know if that made things better or made them worse. She wanted to keep going, to push the car faster and farther until she couldn't think about anything beyond the road in front of her, but even she knew how that would end. Instead, she parked the Bug in an empty space behind the rest stop and climbed into the back seat. It wasn't the first night she had spent in this car and even though her body molded instantly to the familiar shape of the seats as she settled in, the relief she always felt here just didn't come.

She was so good at no but it failed her now and for a moment…for a moment she was back there. It was the space of one breath, maybe two, but it was so real – the worn softness of Killian's sheets, the gentle evening air seeping through the old windows and whispering across her skin, the warmth and safety and _yes_ of Killian's arm wrapped around her, the golden halo of light from the lamp on his nightstand that made it feel like they were the only two people in the world, the way she didn't care about anything else…

Emma pressed her hands hard against her eyes until colours bloomed to life in the black behind her lids. From the moment she pulled out of Killian's driveway she had been telling herself _no, you're not allowed to miss it._ But she was far enough away now and, more than that, so incredibly _tired_ that she let that particular no fall away. A tear slipped down her cheek to drop on the vinyl seat and she didn't stop it, wrapping herself in the memory of what she had as she fell asleep in a place that wasn't home, not in the same way, not anymore.

—-

It took her less time than it should have to get all the way to Key West, and she thought it would get easier as she got farther away but it didn't. Every morning she woke up and thought that this would be the day she would fall back into the habit of running, the day she would stop catching reminders of Killian's house in places they weren't. _Reminders of home_ , she thought sometimes before she could stop herself. But no, no. That place didn't belong to her and she didn't belong to it. So she drove and she tried to replace the memory of Killian's palm pressed against hers with the smooth leather of the steering wheel, the lingering taste of pancakes at his messy table with hasty breakfasts balanced on the dashboard, the twang of a country guitar with pop and classic rock and anything else she could find on every radio station in every state she drove through, the feeling of permanence with the thrill of possibility.

She told herself that no, possibility hadn't lost its thrill. No, a life in one place with one person, where she _belonged,_ didn't sound better. No, this was for the best. For both of them.

Still, there were only so many no's Emma could tell herself before they started sounding like lies.

She had spent enough time running that she knew the routine she had to fall into to make it work: find a town, rent a motel room, get a job, stay as long as she could until her demons caught up to her or until everything fell apart as it always did, and do it all again somewhere else. She knew the routine; she ate, slept, and breathed the routine; she _was_ the routine; except that this time….she didn't. Wasn't.

This time, she couldn't spend more than an hour in her hotel room without comparing it to the room at the end of Killian's hall that had been hers, and then to _his_ room with him in it, to the painfully few mornings they had lingered in that bed together. This time, she went out in the mornings to find herself a job and instead ended up burning through tank after tank of gas driving far from town and into the country, always returning disappointed because the sandy soil and beachy shrubs and flowering fruit trees were all severely lacking when the image behind her eyes was always long, golden grass and houses with flaking white paint and driveways that kicked up dust behind growling black cars.

This time, she was too busy living in a world she had left behind to begin building a new one.

Still, a week after arriving in Florida, Emma was still saying no. Sitting on her motel room bed with the map Killian gave her spread out in front of her, she traced the careful circle drawn on the Maine coast and Killian's careful, beautiful script beside it: _in case you forget the way_.

 _No_. She told herself. _You made your choice. You can't go back_.

She was trying to be firm and her no's had always had so much power over her, but night after night she saw those words on this map and it was harder and harder not to think that she was robbing herself of happiness, of a future, of a _home_ that no, wasn't hers, but could be. That would welcome her if she let it.

 _Do you even know why you're doing this anymore?_ She asked herself, but before she could touch on the inevitable answer, there was a knock at the door.

"I just wanted to catch you while you were in." The woman from the front desk said when Emma answered. "You mentioned you weren't sure if you'd stay past the end of the week, and before I book housekeeping I wanted to check if you'd like to extend your stay?"

Emma should have said yes. She should have stayed another week, then two, then found herself an apartment in town and kept going the same way she had been for years. Instead her eyes drifted shut and the warm Florida evening wrapped around her, and she let herself fall into the vivid memories of Killian's porch and the garage at sunset, the comfortable dishevelment of his house and the creaks it made as it settled at night, and _him_. His soft smile across the breakfast table, his hand anchored in hers, his eyes in the morning light, his lips whisper-soft against hers as he lingered in the doorway. His voice saying _please don't go._

She opened her eyes and glanced over her shoulder, her gaze sweeping across the map and the notation that, even though she couldn't see it from here, she knew was there.

She turned back to the woman and shook her head. "Thanks, but no."

—-

The trip back to Maine took simultaneously years and seconds, the pull of the place so strong that it was impossible to ignore, and as Emma eased the Bug to a stop just behind the Storybrooke sign the feeling of _right_ almost drove her mad. She was terrified to see Killian even as she called him, even as she faked mechanical troubles to get him out here, and twice she told herself that she shouldn't drag this out, that she should just drive to the house and take whatever came next. But as scared she was of the possibility that Killian would change his mind, that he would see her and that _he_ would be the one saying no, she was just as scared of the house – scared to pull in the driveway and find that her memory had skewed it, that the place that had made a home for itself behind her breastbone didn't actually exist; or, even worse, that it was exactly as she remembered it, that she would pull in and a piece of herself would click into place, but that Killian would tell her that she was no longer welcome, and that she would have to leave it again knowing that there was nowhere else she belonged more.

She shouldn't have worried because it was always her who said no. Not him.

Their brief exchange by the town sign was all _yes_. Yes, he still wanted her. Yes, she could come back. Yes, he forgave her for being an idiot. Yes, yes, yes.

He took her home after that, led her there in the shop truck with his eyes flashing over to catch hers in the rearview mirror too frequently to be safe but not frequently enough to stop her heart from pounding every time he looked away. She was the one who had left, but now that she was here she didn't want anything between them – be it states or a handful of feet.

He pulled into the driveway first, the truck kicking up a familiar cloud of dust, and something shifted in her chest. It was all exactly as she had remembered – the garage solid and certain with both doors thrown open to catch the evening breeze, the faded lettering on the sign out front, the flakes of paint making faint shadows against the side of the house, the porch looking worn and welcoming, and the soft golden light in the kitchen window that somehow said there was always somewhere to go if you needed to.

The few hours she and Killian spent in the garage together made her feel as though she had never left, and it was a strange kind of magic that she never wanted to end. The curled up together in his bed after that, both fell asleep with whispered words nestled between them, and Emma woke up to _home_.

It took a week for Killian to bring it up, but one night when they were nestled together on the porch with the sun setting before them, his careful voice started, "Do you ever regret…"

She didn't let him finish, shaking her head and pressing her fingertips against the corner of his mouth to silence him. She didn't even need to think about her answer and leaned in, her lips a hairsbreadth away from his so he could feel her words against them when she whispered, "No."

Emma had always been good at no, after all.


	16. Extra 3

Emma never hated Killian more than she did at 4am when the phone rang. Because he was him, the phone on their bedside table was one that had been in this house longer than he had, and when it rang it sounded like it was trying to tear itself apart from the inside.

It rang for the third time and she _hated_ him because once upon a time he had decided that all night repair calls were good for the business but here he was, rolling over beside her and burying his head under his pillow when the calls actually came.

She supposed she had agreed to take shifts driving the big truck around town at all hours of the night and morning, but still. His fault.

"'S your turn, love," Killian mumbled as it rang again, his words muffled by pillow and sleep.

"It's your business," she grumbled back, but reached for the phone anyways. Her hand fished in the empty air for a fraction of a second before connecting with the familiar shape of the phone, and this was such a habit now that she didn't even open her eyes as she pressed the receiver to her ear. The conversation was short and simple, the person on the other line apologetic about waking her so early, and that almost made it better.

"What's wrong?" Killian asked when she hung up, pulling his head out from under the pillow and opening one eye to look at her.

"Some idiot without snow tires slid off the road and got stuck in a snow bank," she muttered, rolling over to face him and wedging her bare feet beneath his socked ones under the blanket, chasing the blissful warmth of this bed for another moment. She saw something flash in his eye and offered him a small smile before his expression could darken, before his mind could run away with him. "Nobody's hurt. They're just in too deep to get out without a tow."

"You alright alone?"

"Yeah. I'll just hook them up and pull them out. Easy." She let her eyes drift shut, let herself fall into the blissful fantasy that she wasn't going anywhere in the still-dark morning, that she was just going to let him pull her close and fall back asleep in the warm cocoon of his arms. His thick woolen socks were snug against her feet, the arm draped over her waist a pleasant line of heat, and more than anything she just wanted to stay here one second longer.

She sighed once, long, and opened her eyes again, only to be met with both of his. They were the dark, clear blue they only were at this hour, and they were shining with laughter that was so at odds with his peaceful, sleepy expression and the pillow lines still on his cheek.

"What?"

"Nothing," he said, and she could hear the same laugh in his voice too. "I know what you're thinking."

"What am I thinking, then?" She let herself indulge a moment longer, shifting fractionally closer and reaching up to brush a strand of sleep-wild hair out of his eyes, and she never loved him more than she did in these moments at 4am with the shrill of the phone a memory in the air - when he would look at her with _everything_ in his eyes and she knew she was looking back the same.

"You're thinking," he murmured, catching her hand and twining his fingers with hers, pressing his lips to her knuckles in a now-familiar gesture and whispering his words against them, "That Granny's probably going to be up and baking by the time you're done so you'd like to bring muffins back so I don't have to leave this warm bed."

"Is that so?" She tried not to smile but it was hard in these moments when every touch flowed freely, when she could look him and _know_ he was hers as much as she was his.

"Mmhmm." He released her and rolled onto his back as she slid out of bed. As she shrugged on a hoodie his blinks became longer and longer, and he murmured in that way he did just before he fell asleep at night. Her smile was soft as she pressed a hand against the cold pane of the window because this...this was everything she had never even believed was possible for her.

"You know what _I_ think I'm thinking?" She said quietly, smile turning sly as she pushed off the window. Even as he turned his head sleepily in her direction in a move that was almost _too_ adorable, her cold hand darted under the side of the blankets found his calf immediately. She couldn't help the small, soft laugh at the yelp he let out or at the way his eyes snapped open in indignation. "That." She darted out of the way as he waved his hand blindly in her direction - clumsily, because he was still unwilling to come out from under the blankets - but she hooked a finger in the top of his sock as she did and tugged the floppy thing off one foot. "And I'm taking your socks."

It was a longer job than expected, the car half-buried when she and the truck made their way to it, and even her feet snug in her heavy boots and Killian's thick socks were feeling the bite of the cold wind and deep snow by the time she finished. She watched the freed car disappear down the road as she sat in the cab of the truck filling in the final pieces of the service report, the defroster blasting the windshield and filling the interior with white noise.

As much as she hated leaving the cocoon of her and Killian's bed for these early calls, she only had to be out a few minutes to remember why she loved it. Ice and cold aside, there was something magical about the truck in the morning - the heater slowly turning crisp air into a comfortable heat, the abstract streaks of frost that shone on the windshield, and the weak light refracting on the snow and the yellow lines of the road outside. It was also the way the silence courted memories, but not the kind she had gotten used to over twenty-eight years alone. No, what lived in the truck on mornings like this were ghosts of smiles slid across the roofs of beat up cars, hands lingering a moment too long as tools were passed back and forth, and the whisper of Killian's fingertips against her ankle as he tugged on the floppy tops of stolen socks, the rush of breath against skin as he smiled against her lips. It was _belonging_ most of all - a spot in the driveway for one yellow bug, a warm bed and warmer arms always waiting, and the familiar rumble of the truck mingling with the soft radio in the cab as she pulled of the shoulder and made her way home.

She parked the truck behind the shop when she got back and hiked up the driveway to the house, a soft smile making its way onto her face when she saw the glow in the kitchen window that meant that Killian, for all his words about never leaving the bed, was awake.

"What would you have done if Granny's _had_ been open on my way back?" She asked in greeting, knocking the soles of her boots against the outside wall of the house as she came in the door. It was a futile effort as snow always seemed to blow in off the porch anyways, but it felt familiar now, too - the hollow _thunk_ of the thick soles against the brick and the faint breath of cold air that followed her in. She shed her coat and mitts in a pile next to the door - his fault, too, because she hadn't been nearly as messy before he had rubbed off on her.

"I would have dumped my bowl of cereal, for one thing," he said, meeting her halfway to the kitchen and pressing a steaming cup of hot chocolate into her hands. "But I'm guessing your question means I'm stuck with it?"

"Alas." She knew before she took a sip of the drink that it would burn the roof of her mouth, but she couldn't find it in her to care. Her smile only spread as the warmth of it shot through her and she still loved him most at 4am when he wore a smile that was just for her, but only just. "God this is good. Thank you."

"If it was cold coming down the stairs, I can only imagine what it must have been like outside."

She looked up and caught the edge of his smile, something sly in the shape of it because he knew she didn't care - knew that no matter how much she loved waking up in his arms every morning after uninterrupted nights, she had carved out a place for herself in the cab of his truck in the early mornings, the world waking up around her and nothing but the road in the glow of her headlights.

She shot him a soft grin back because as much as he knew her, she knew him, and knew what it meant that his little corner of the world had become hers, too.

"It's not so bad."

It took four more calls about cars sliding off the road before Killian started getting antsy.

The more the phone rang in the early hours and the more turns she took driving to fish cars out of ditches and snowbanks, the less likely he was to be truly _asleep_ when those calls came - instead just dozing and waiting. It was that and the fact that every time she left, the words that followed her weren't sleepy mumbles or his soft, early morning laughter, but a crisp, clear, alert _Be Careful_.

Four calls of that then, one day, spoken across the garage, "You don't have snow tires, do you Swan?"

She hesitated a moment, his voice quasi-confident as it rang in the space but a little too _something_ to truly convince her, then said, "I have all-seasons."

She spoke it into the yawning cavity of a Ford engine because she knew they weren't the same thing.

"You know how slick the roads can get out here," he said.

"I know."

"And you know your car doesn't have four wheel drive, or traction control."

"It's not like I drive much more than the truck in the winter anyways," she replied. This was her second winter and he knew as well as she did how close to home she stayed when the wind was howling over the fields.

"But if you're ever out without the truck."

"I'm not," she said, and she could hear the edge in her voice, "Going anywhere. Without the truck. It's fine."

"Alright." She didn't need to look at him to tell he had his eyebrow raised and both hands held in mock surrender. But they had talked about this before, last year, and he should have known how unlikely it was that she would ever change her mind once it had been made up.

But then, two mornings later, she woke suddenly in the middle of the night and the phone wasn't ringing. The phone _hadn't_ rung because she always woke up when it did, but somehow she still found herself in bed alone.

Killian had left his thick socks folded on the chair in the corner and she slipped them on, padding silently down the stairs and half-blindly grabbing her jacket and boots by the door. All the overhead lights weren't on in the garage, but one strip of fluorescents still shone through the window to make a thin path of light on the snow for her to follow from the house. Killian's footsteps were already half-filled with snow that had blown from the drifts pressed against the house, and she wondered how long he had been gone before she had noticed.

She slipped quietly through the back door and found him immediately, sitting cross-legged on a folded pair of coveralls to cut the chill of the concrete floor with what must have been two full sets of socket wrenches spread out in front of him. His fingers were combing through the collection, to all appearances arranging them, but she could tell he wasn't really seeing them.

"I'd ask you if you know what time it is, but..."

"I know," he said, and his voice hadn't sounded this tired in a long time.

She wanted to ask him what he was doing out here, but they both knew the answer. Instead, she crouched next to him until he shuffled over, making room for her to sit beside him on the makeshift cushion. It was tight enough that they were pressed together hip to shoulder, and she could feel a slight tremor in his arm against hers - cold or something else, she didn't know.

"Are you organizing these by brand or by size?" She asked softly.

"Both. I've got the boxes for the sets over there." He jerked his head towards the back bench and she couldn't see anything in the dark mess of stuff, but she let him say it anyways.

They worked in silence for a while, the harsh clank of metal on metal and the empty howl of the wind outside the only sounds. She wished she had brought gloves because the metal of the wrenches was cold against her fingers, and by the redness of his hands she could tell Killian was feeling it too. She wanted to reach out and grab him, hold his hands and _him_ close until the warmth from the house followed them down here.

"It's just..." he said, and her eyes snapped up to his because it was like he _knew_ she couldn't just sit here saying nothing and watch him like this. "I don't want to pressure you, Emma. You know that. But..." And _now_ he looked at her, and the look in his eyes was emptier than this garage. "I know you're ten times the driver than any of the people we have to tow out of places, and I know you're usually in the truck, and I know you're not stupid, but..."

"Killian, you don't..." she started, because she knew where this was going.

"Every time you take one of those calls..." he whispered, and that cut through her voice so thoroughly he could have been screaming. "You know what I'm thinking."

"I know," she said, and her voice was softer than his now. Every time the phone rang and every time she took the call, his eyes were full of crumpled metal wrapped around hydro poles, full of empty rooms in a house that echoed with loneliness, full of a sign painted _Jones Bros. Automotive_ , full of years-passed fear that she knew felt fresh even now. So yes, she knew what he was thinking. Every piece of it, she knew.

"If you're really so opposed to the idea of snow tires," he continued, "I won't push the issue, but-"

"I..." She didn't know why she thought that they would never talk about this - about the one thing that still sat between them, even if they could both mostly ignore it. But she couldn't listen to him breathe these words into the air and stay silent, like she didn't think the same things he did, and not give him an explanation. "It's not that I don't...but...I just don't want to be able to...and I don't want you to think I'd ever..."

The word _Leave_ hadn't been in either of their vocabularies for a blissfully long time, but she wasn't stupid enough to think it wasn't always on both of their minds.

"I'm not going to lie any say I haven't though about that too," he said, and her heart broke. "But..." His hand came up to nudge her chin, guiding her eyes to lock with his, and it wasn't fear or anger or sadness or anything there - it was that same _everything_ expression he wore in the mornings, the one he saved just for her. "Wherever you go, if it's down to Granny's or...somewhere else...I'd rather you be safe."

"Even if it meant..."

"Yeah." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close, breathing the words into her hair. "Even then."

She didn't say anything then because she _couldn't_ \- because her heart was suddenly in her throat and her eyes were suddenly full. So she leaned into him and felt his breath swirl warmth between them and wondered for a bare moment how he could ever think that her being anywhere but here was an option.

Eventually, she just said, "If I were to say yes, I'd probably have to work them off, right? So it's not like I could _really_ go anywhere anyways."

"In theory." He pulled away and the look he gave her was complicated and sheepish. His arm fell away from her shoulders as he stood, wiping nonexistent dirt from the legs of his pajamas before holding his hand down to pull her up with him. He didn't look at her as he led her across the garage and into the office, but still said, "But that also may not be an issue."

It took her a moment to figure out what he was showing her, the two of them standing in the doorway to the storage room off the office, but when her eyes adjusted to the dark and followed the finger he was pointing into the space, she knew.

"How long have you had these?" She asked, turning to face him. The hand that wasn't still in hers drifted up to rub behind his ear, and he offered her a small smile that was half-grimace.

"They came in a parts order in September."

"Sept-"

"Last September," he clarified, the words a rush as they fell into the open air.

 _Last September_. She hadn't been here that long then, and he couldn't have been sure that she would even stay - not after the way she had taken her car and left the first chance she got. But these...he'd had a stack of tires sitting back here long before the first snowflake had fallen, long before they had talked about snow tires the first time, then the second time, then every time after that. Long before she had said no. Long before the late nights and early mornings together, the conversations while working that filled them with as much of the other as of themselves, the way he looked at her and she at him, the way she realized every day how little she wanted to be anywhere but here.

"Killian, you know I'm not going anywhere. Tires or not. Right?" The question was more fragile than it should have been because _she_ knew she wanted to be here, but did he?

Instead of answering he just pulled her close again, his lips finding her forehead and holding there for several long moments - long enough that she could feel the faint beat of his heart through them, long enough that they were breathing in the same sliver of time, long enough that she knew he knew before he whispered, "I know."

"I mean it," she breathed back. "Forever, if you..."

"You know better to ask if I want you here." He tilted his head back so he could look at her, let her see the way his eyes shone at her words, but he didn't let her go. "Though I'll have to get you a lot more than four tires to keep you here that long."

"You wouldn't." She said. "But if you did..."

"I know." His answering smile was everything it always was at this time of night, but more, and just for her - always just for her. And she though that tires or more than tires or nothing at all, it wasn't something she wanted to give up.


End file.
